If you are in real estate, you already know new building and housing starts are down. Now, the AIA has put some numbers around it. A new report shows that construction spending is down 27 percent since 2008, a loss of $300 billion in economic activity. Leanne Tobias at Greenbiz writes:

"As reported in a new study by the American Institute of Architects, construction spending in the U.S. has declined by 27 percent since 2008, an economic loss of close to $300 billion. (An additional $470 billion in construction-related spending also has been lost.) Private construction projects have been particularly hard hit, declining by more than a third, while public construction is down roughly 10 percent.

Freezing right now? Broiling? Can't see because of glare? Blame your windows. Serious Energy is holding the I Want Better Windows contest. You could be one of the winners of 250 square feet of iWindows. (click here to enter) or vote for one of the entrants.

Today's entry comes from Michael in New Jersey. He's at a hospital:

"We are a non-profit hospital. Our windows are 30 or more years older... It would be great to have warmer patient rooms and offices for the staff. My office is in the basement... No windows for me but it would be realy good for the building."

If you're sitting in your office freezing because of chilly weather outside or baking because of accumulated solar heat, you have a problem. And Serious Energy has the solution: the iWindow. It's an easy-to-install window we've created to help better insulate your building. The iWindow snaps into existing frames over the top of existing windows: no disruption to people indoors, no high installation costs. Fast. Easy.

And to let the world know about them, we're holding the "I Want New Windows" contest. Write in why your building needs new windows and you could be one of the winners of 250 square feet of iWindows. (click here to enter) or vote for one of the entrants. (See list here.) We will later tally the votes and select the winners.

Today's entry comes from Tanya W in Northern California. Unlike Nash in Montana, who is freezing, Tanya is being pounded by the heat:

Rocky Mountain Institute and Cushman & Wakefield experts presented a well-attended session at Greenbuild Toronto on high energy performance glass, titled Transparency in the Service of Sustainability: Addressing the Market Demand for Glass Buildings.

In order to show the world a better commercial window retrofit solution and a much better window, for a limited time only Serious Energy is giving away a FREE pilot installation of iWindow (up to 250 square feet of glass – enough to upgrade an entire corner office or most conference rooms) to a lucky winner. To win with iWindow, just nominate a building and tell us why it really needs better windows on our new customer microsite -- www.iwantbetterwindows.com.

New York Stock Exchange Selects SeriousGlass for Energy-Saving Glass Retrofit

Sunnyvale, CA – October 3, 2011 - Serious Energy, Inc. today announced that its super-insulating SeriousGlass commercial glass has been installed in the New York Stock Exchange building, a designated National Historic Landmark. SeriousGlass was selected to modernize the 104-year-old building to reduce energy use while maximizing natural daylighting and improving year-round comfort. The SeriousGlass retrofit will increase the thermal performance by almost 60% and reduce solar heat gain by 40% compared to the original glass. Approved by the Landmark Preservation Commission, SeriousGlass enables state-of-the-art, high energy performance for the building without altering the aesthetics or integrity of the building’s historic exterior. The same SeriousGlass technology was utilized for the retrofit of all 6,514 windows of the Empire State Building as a critical part of its whole building energy efficiency retrofit project.

It’s one thing to tell you about how quickly and easily you can now retrofit commercial windows for energy savings and comfort, but we’d also like to show you! We recently installed the iWindow retrofit system in a few offices of a San Francisco Bay Area office building. The install happened during evening hours (so in the pictures below, you're seeing the reflection of the offices in the windows).