Normal.

Any time a surface falls below the dew point for a given mass of air at a particular temperature and relative humidity you get condensation.

On a 95F degree day with relatively humidity at 95%, the surface only needs to cool to 92F for condensation to occur.

All that is being indicated by your situation is that you have warmer moister air on the outside that is condensing on cooler exterior parts of the windows.

Completely normal.

The aluminum probably leaked so much heat they stayed to warm to condense.
The new windows sound like they have a high enough R value for the outer pane to get below the dew point.

I visited a home today for one of our dealers to settle a condensation concern just like yours. When I arrived, the exterior glass was soaked, condensation running down the glass. When we toured the outside, I pointed out that the entire wall surface was just as wet as the windows and explained the dew point issue. To make matters worse, they have a 2 acre pond less than 100 feet from their back door.

Michael

I know brickeeye and manhattan42 are PE's so I ask you what would indicate a blown seal? Smokey or fogged looking window?

Brickeye and brushowrs, thanks. Yes, I'm sure the old aluminum windows, though double-pane were having issues. Actually a couple were fogging up between the panes from the beginning when we moved in 16 years ago. I think I went into shock last week when I first saw the condensation. Got up out of bed and couldn't see out of the window. Panicked briefly, opened the window, removed the screen and ran my finger down the glass and to my relief it was on the outside. :-)

Thanks again for your replies, I feel much better now.

fqp25,

When you get the condensation between the lites of a dual pane you have a blown seal.

I was talking to the window contractor this morning and he also confirmed that the condensation was normal. Thanks to all

Thanks for clearing this up. We recently had triple pane Pella Windows installed with the interior shades. I panicked when I saw the condensation and did the exact same thing: opened the window to see if the moisture was on the outside or between the panes. The Pella person is coming next week to fix some of the shades and we were going to ask about the condensation as well.

We just had exact windows installed. Same problem. We wished we would have been told about this issue before we made our selection.