Not All "Ceramic" Films Are Created Equal

Hey, this is Ralph at Flexfilm, and today we have our heat lamp demonstration, and we're going to have a little fun today. Going to be kind of casual about this. I'm sitting on my orange bucket. We got some slides in here. Each one represents something I want to show you, but at Flexfilm, we don't make film. We have to find products that we sell, and we've had a lot of luck with the ones that we sell now. We've made some mistakes before, but right now we're not changing anything. We got a good lineup and that's what we're going with.

But I just want to share something with you because this little heat box has really helped me out a lot. If something helps me, why can't it help you? That that's my theory here. A lot of times we want to over- complicate things and we want to look at specs and, yeah, we can go down that road, okay? But for this video, we're going to have some fun because this is just a simple box. This is a bulb that I bought at Home Depot and it's a 250 watt heat bulb. You can press a button and you can turn it on and you can feel the heat off of it. It's pretty simple. Because I wish you could reach your hand out and put it right here in front of this box, but you can't do that.

That's why I've got a heat sheet. This sheet is sensitive to heat. It's the closest possible thing I could come up with that would represent what you could actually feel with your hand. We're going to do it with an image, and let me show you what I'm talking about. We're going to turn it on, focus on the heat sheet. Just watch what it does with this powerful heat bulb here. Okay. It turns colors in the presence of heat. It's pretty simple. I turn it off, then it starts to go back down to the black color, okay.

Why am I making this video? Because there's a lot of window films out there for us to choose, you too of course. Which one is the one we should choose? Which one's the best choice? That gets very complicated, but let's talk about performance. I mean, if you're looking for a ceramic window film, or an IR window film, and you want something that's really going to outdo the guy down the street and you want to have the best and you want to certainly preserve your reputation and get as much business as you possibly can, get as much credibility, okay. Where do you go to buy the best film? What's going to be the best performance for the value?

Let me show you something that I want you to be aware of, okay. I'm going to call a lot of you guys out, okay, because I'm guilty of this. If I can be guilty of it, then you can be guilty of it. You see, for over 20 years of my career, I've been in this 30 years, okay, but for over 20 years I was flying blind, okay. I was being told that window films block out heat. I was telling my customers they block out heat. You know, we're putting them on cars and that wasn't always true. What really, really shocked me was when I had a window film rep came by to visit me and showed me some technology from a really popular company with some of the newer IR technologies that are out there to this very day. When I put my hand in front of that heat lamp demonstration, and he showed me that product, I was impressed. But I wasn't really impressed as much as you would think I was because I'm like, "Hey, all the other films I got here probably do the same thing." He said, "Well, go back there and get those films and let's see what you've got." I said, "Okay."

I went back and started getting my favorite films, the ones I've been putting on for years. We built these glass slides and we began to put them in front of the heat lamp. I was more shocked at how much the first film he showed me would work because everything I put my hand in front of wouldn't work. Let me show you an example of what I'm talking about. This is a dyed film, okay? This has got a lifetime warranty. This comes from a fancy, big name company. We're not going to go around selling dyed limousine tint to everybody. But for this example, let me show you how intrigued I was about this, and I want to drop it down in front of this powerful bulb. I'm going to put the heat sheet here and I want to press the button, and let's just watch what happens.

If you want to pay a similar price and you want to see what's out there, this is what we found. Okay. If you can find something better, please let me know. I'm always interested in hearing about good films. I want to show you what this will do now. Now, before I push this button, I got to tell you something that's kind of cool. This film is so powerful and it absorbs so much energy, we kind of play with it sometimes because it'll crack glass.

Now, it won't crack glass on a car. Car glass is usually tempered and it's very strong and it's resilient. It's made for heat, but you talking about a piece of quarter inch plate glass, double strength plate glass, okay. This stuff, if I put it in your house, it wouldn't even be up to most codes. If I put it in your car, it wouldn't... it just doesn't go in cars because if it breaks, it shatters. This is really weak glass, even though it's thick and we can kind of bang it around a little bit. It's good for slide presentations, but it's very poor quality for putting in our home or our car, of course. But I want to show you what it does. This is a performance video. There's some other products out there in this category that are a lot better priced that you really get a lot of bang for your buck that have no dye in them, but watch what it does. Again, I'm just going to sit here and leave it on. I don't know how long it's going to take, but it doesn't take long to bust the glass. I want you guys to watch. This glass is... I mean, I don't want to put my hand and interfere with it, but we can sit here for quite a while.

You can see if there's any energy or any heat, it's going to pick it up right here. This film is really quite amazing, I mean, what it's going to block out, what it's going to absorb. But I just don't know of anything else in the industry right now that's better than this. I've got some films that are giving it a run for its money, but for an absorbing technology, I mean, this is incredible.

I mean, all this energy is coming into this glass and it's just soaking it up like a sponge. This glass is getting physically hotter and hotter and hotter. It's building up, and at some point, it'll just crack. Now, on your car, it won't crack. Trust me on this. This is why we don't put this film on flat glass applications. This is why we probably wouldn't put this film on maybe a sun roof because it's getting direct sunlight.

But I don't know. I wish we had a timer here. Maybe we should have a timer. Maybe we'll edit that in on the video, and we'll see how many seconds it takes. But again, look at that, folks. There's no... I mean, we can sit here and talk and talk and talk. It's going to take a long time, if ever, for there to get any heat to touch this heat sheet. I mean, this is... I wish I could put my hand in front. I wish I could put your hand in front of this, man.

This film right here, you know all the shades that we have have this level of performance. When you put them on a car, you can just feel the difference. That's all I'm trying to tell you. It may not have a fancy brand attached to it that you know is recognizable, that anybody else is selling in the industry, but when it comes in a Flexfilm box, I can tell you when you buy it, this is what you can expect.

You can take your heat lamp demonstration, you can put it on there. It's just, I don't even know if we got enough... how much memory do we have on this card here? I was hoping the glass would bust by now, but sometimes we get some glass that's just better than others. But I mean, I don't know... Oh, there were go. How long has it been, man? What's it going to do? I mean, it's a... how long? There it goes, folks. Look at that. Bam. Look at that.

I mean, I wish I could measure thermometer how hot this is. I could burn my face with this, man. This is crazy. This film, I'm just telling you, if you want the best, you got to get this, man. Okay. If you want to know what some of these other films are and you want to call me and have a personal conversation, I'll be glad to have a professional, personal conversation with you. But I'll even tell you about some of the other testing that we're doing and what we're finding.

There's a lot of films out there that are impressive. Okay. But there are some out there that it's a joke, man. I don't understand how they're getting away with it. But you know, this is the real deal, folks. I bust any glass, if it's plate, with his demonstration. Bring it on, man.

But hey, thanks for watching. I just want to create some awareness about not all ceramic window films are created equal. They block out different levels of heat and solar energy. Sometimes you just got to trust your own hand to know what you're really getting, especially if you're on a budget and you just want to know real quick. But thank you, thank you for watching and hope this was entertaining for you like it was for me. Thank you.