Label Correction
I would like to see “mullion” used in cases for windows and doors where “muntin” is overused and used incorrectly. Mullion are the bigger/heavier horizontal or vertical members. Muntins are the wood/aluminum dividers separating panes/ thermal units no-a-days. Look it up! 🙂 Thanks.
Red-Seal carpenter here from Canada–did a bit of glazing as well in my day. Cheers
Hi Mitch,
We’ve done some research on the difference between muntins and mullions and on many other architectural/wood/aluminum terms related to doors and windows (and stairs and more…). The main entertaining conclusion was that architects/carpenters/designers use the terms differently in different parts of the world, sometimes even in the same city. Sometimes there are parts or dimensions that don’t even have a name, so we have to invent one just to make some sense when designing the components.
A search on google for muntins and mullions will bring varying results…
We tried to take the broadest definition where, mullions tend to be structural and larger (and we don’t have those YET in the current set of windows and doors), and muntins divide the panes within a sash. Also note that we are using the same ‘sash’ sub-component both in the windows and in the glass door, so that could also cause definition issues.
The default setting for all the windows is to have a single glazing, so it wouldn’t fall exactly to your definition, but if you change it to double or triple… it just might work?
I think at some point we tried to not use the words muntins or mullions anywhere and we stuck to just ‘divisions’, but it just didn’t look right 🙂