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Bob Crager
Bob Crager of Lewis Street Glass is a 26 year veteran in the glass business. Lewis Street Glass is a leading Wichita Glass company, serving the entire Wichita/Sedgwick County area since 1919. They do anything and everything having to do with glass, both residential and commercial. They also do Auto glass. They are located at 743 South Market, facing Kellogg on the South, and you can reach them by phone at (316) 263-8259. You can email Bob Crager at bcrager@lewisstreetglass.com
Glass
2011-11-30 10:41:16
Why do so many people neglect the windows of their homes?
Q) My wife and I have been looking for another home to buy. We’ve seen so many deteriorated windows so far, that we now go into each home and the first thing we look at is the condition of the windows. If those are in good shape, we go on. Many times, the windows are in really bad shape, and we want to know why so many people neglect this important part of their home.
A) Unless folks are really in tune with the exterior maintenance of their home, the windows are frankly just easy to ignore. As long as the heat and cold are kept from actively intruding on the inside of the home, a lot of the time people just ignore the windows. This is why, when they do finally discover the deterioration, it’s already way beyond repairing, requiring instead a total replacement. It’s also why we recommend that twice a year, you walk around the exterior of your home and closely examine the windows. The frames can be bad and look good. Unless you get up close and personal with your examination, you will miss the problems that may be getting ready to get much worse. Check carefully for “wood rot” in the frames. This can be either “dry rot” or “wet rot”. The wood becomes soft and shows signs of deterioration. Sometimes the wood rot is still covered or concealed by the paint or vinyl, thereby making the damage hard to discover. But you’ll save yourself significant headaches if you’ll take this inspection program seriously. The first thing to go bad on quite a few windows is the seal on thermo pane windows, allowing moisture to begin to accumulate between the two or three panes of glass, creating a fogging condition, which makes it increasingly hard to see through. This happens to even the best of residential windows, sometimes after only 10 to 15 years, whether as a result of sunlight or temperature changes or both. In the Wichita area, we have icy winters with the heat on indoors, and then steamy, humid summers with the central air blasting inside. With the glass panels alternately expanding in the heat and contracting in the cold, you can imagine the wear and tear this puts on the seal between them. Therefore, the seal goes, and the moisture accumulation begins. It’s important to note that not every permanently foggy window is eligible for the types of repairs required to correct the problem. When homeowners wait too long to have the damage repaired, the moisture stains and damages the glass to the point that the foggy appearance cannot be effectively removed. White or opaque coloring in the glass, or a mottling on the glass, are good indicators that you have waited too long, but the best way to know if the glass can be saved is to have a local certified trained professional glass technician come take a look at it. Then you’ll know if a repair is in order, or if total window replacement is your best option. Repairing the window is normally a less expensive proposition than totally replacing the window. The best time to repair a “perma fogged” thermo pane window is as soon as you notice the damage. Just because you have stalled too long for one window doesn’t mean you can’t save the rest of your windows. But, since it seems that when one or two window seals fail, the rest are soon to follow. So it might make some sense to contact your local glass dealer and get a professional opinion as to which way to go on your own windows. If you have been experiencing window failure in your home, the chances are, but not always, that all your thermal pane windows are nearing the end of their engineered life span because during the construction of your home, windows are installed as a "family of windows". They’re built of the same materials and subject to the same failures. The differences normally being how much sunlight or shade, heat and cold, each one gets during the daytime or nighttime exposures. The clear windows adjacent to visibly foggy windows have been exposed to the same devastating environmental conditions. There may not be visible signs of failure yet (i.e. window fog or condensation), but it usually isn’t very far behind. To sum up, do your twice a year inspections, or call your local glass shop where you plan to get your repairs done. Help for all of these glass problems is normally just a phone call or a click away! More next month…
 
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