Window replacement #5

This is Jeff, who came to replace the window pane with Andrew (not shown). This window has been a real pain, literally, as this is the fourth replacement (fifth piece of glass).

Because the window was cracked, the seal was broken. This meant the window was essentially a single pane unit. As a result, the condensation on the inside of the glass froze, and of course this meant any water in the drainage channels in the window froze as well. The bottom piece of moulding that holds the glass in was frozen to the frame, and unfortunately broke when Jeff was trying to remove it. You can see all the ice that they scraped off the bottom of the window frame in preparation for installing the replacement glass.

This is the window after the new pane was installed. No cracks yet - cross your fingers! I asked Steve (the owner of the window company) what would be different this time, so that the window would break again. He said that Fenergic, the window manufacturer, said to put a bead of silicone on the glass. To me, that just doesn't make sense because there must be something that is putting pressure on the glass and causing it to fail. That was also Steve's idea, because he asked Jeff to take a look at anything that might potentially be causing the glass failure.

When Jeff was cleaning out the ice, he noticed that there was a very small nub of plastic sticking out at each of the bottom corners. That little bit would have only been protruding about 1, or maybe 2m mm. Since added pressure could cause the glass to fail, Jeff got out his knife and shaved the pieces off. This photo is a macro zoom of the tiny particles of plastic shaved off the bottom corners of the frame. For comparison, you can see a couple of Taz hairs in the photo also :). Hopefully that will be it and there won't be any more glass failures...