Scratched the crap out of exterior low-e

No, I admire your ethics but your tech scratched something, maybe not the glass. Relaxe and think, resurfacing or replacement are not the only options. Your client will see that you are doing your best.

In my exprience the builder will lie to your face and accept no responsability for anything.

Let me state that differently, In my experiance the builder will lie to your face and accept no resposability for anything.

I hear ya, but regardless I wont lie to his face and deny any resposiblity it’s not in my character. At this point how and why it happened is the big question. manufactering defect, self-cleaning glass, a simple removable plastic coating. My head is spinning I’m pretty sure I wont sleep until I figure this out. :confused:

I would check with what Dale had said about the plastic film during construction, same thing happened to me with a commercial account and a new replaced piece of glass one early morning. I was lucky, the glass tech did not remove the film, but it had me nervous for a moment.

Agreed, the color is consistent with a lot of the static wrap, especially considering its a costly custom design, and most likely when the builder framed it in, they covered the wrap edge so you just can’t see it. Kind of like a lot of wooden glass doors that the trim covers the wrap and you have to cut it away.But you might want to reiterate to your techs, if it doesn’t feel right, STOP and evaluate, plastic or low e would have made a dragging feel as soon the wetter was on it.Also, from experience low e (atleast Pella storms) will make a cloudy shadow look when the coating is disturbed by bronze wool or even a towel rubbed too hard.

This is something I’ve never heard of…what manufacturers are the ones doing this? Each site should have a fact sheet with how to clean it, well, their approved methods.

What a trip. When I picture acrylic coating, I see coatings such as those on shiny wfp’s. If its not tinted acrylic, why couldn’t you just buff it out like you would on a pole or on your trucks paint when you wax. Like color-sanding. Start with 2 or 3000 grit with water depending on how bad the scratch and then to 4 and 5000 grit, and then liquid.

What if it was tested in a small area? Couldn’t get worse than it is.

1 Like

The Anderson Rep is coming out to look at it. The rest of the windows on this “house” were Marvins hmm?

In learning that it was an Anderson I did some looking around on thier site. Low and behold they use this “wonderful” new self cleaning glass on thier custom pieces of glass. Here is my sarcastic “fan-freaking-tastic”. welp here we go…

Dang, sorry to hear that. I was hoping it would just be some type of film that got scratched.

Yeah me too! Lesson learned. Check all glass for type and film. make sure your techs are educated on all types of glass and films.

I’m a worst case scenario person…I’d just find out who the glass co was that did the install/ ordering and find out how much…does look like a film though…and I’ve seen Marvin’s scratched with wool…

HA! I KNEW IT![SIZE=5]

What’s going on, everybody blocking my posts?
[/SIZE][SIZE=2]Alright, so check it out…here’s the deal with that stuff. They HAVE TO TELL YOU, and they are not allowed to remove the sticker until the construction clean. The builder should have known about it. What is it, the Anderson low-e 4?

[/SIZE]

[/QUOTE]

yes it is! There was no notification by the time we got to it. No stickers nothing. Maybe the builder did know and that is why he is not laying blame at this point? (I didnt block your posts?.) So what your saying is its not my fault because there was no notification?

Yes. And no.

Yes, its not your fault because this is a relatively new product, and there is a specific way to clean the glass per Anderson’s maintenance sheet, the builder should have made it a point to put that on his punch list to inform all contractors on site and in the drawings about that glass.

Because you are the professional though, you will ALWAYS get some of the blame. Whats messed up about the whole thing is, there is no way to tell just by looking at it side by side with another window that has a low-e coating. I would have done the same exact thing and made the same scratch’s if it wasn’t for the homeowner who on the phone with me asked me how I was going to clean the glass: I thought that was an odd question. She told me that the manufacturer says not to use any abrasives…okay…nothing new…but then she said that no soaps with dye’s in them.

Now that’s just silly, I told her. Are you really reading this or making this up? So after a ton of research, yes…I’m sure you’ve seen the sheet I’m talking about.

Suggestion:
Take some really good hi res photos of it, and write it in to your field operations.
Add a question when interviewing: what type of glass is this? (4 years or less, I believe is the time frame). If its self cleaning, the owner/builder will know about it, even if they don’t…most cases they will know the brand and model! This even helps when your doing phone estimates if you have photos of most brands’ windows.

Call Anderson and tell em what happened. Don’t know what everyone else’s experience is with them, but mine was a pleasant one. They were ALL very cool to me and gave me all the answers I needed. I’d be willing to bet the builder is in hot water.

[QUOTE=thorSG1:202544]Yes. And no.

Yes, its not your fault because this is a relatively new product, and there is a specific way to clean the glass per Anderson’s maintenance sheet, [I][B]the builder should have made it a point to put that on his punch on site and in the drawings about that glass.[/B][/I]

Because you are the professional though, you will ALWAYS get some of the blame. Whats messed up about the whole thing is, there is no way to tell just by looking at it side by side with another window that has a low-e coating. I would have done the same exact thing and made the same scratch’s if it wasn’t for the homeowner who on the phone with me asked me how I was going to clean the glass: I thought that was an odd question. She told me that the manufacturer says not to use any abrasives…okay…nothing new…but then she said that no soaps with dye’s in them.

Now that’s just silly, I told her. Are you really reading this or making this up? So after a ton of research, yes…I’m sure you’ve seen the sheet I’m talking about.

Suggestion:
Take some really good hi res photos of it, and write it in to your field operations.
Add a question when interviewing: what type of glass is this? (4 years or less, I believe is the time frame). If its self cleaning, the owner/builder will know about it, even if they don’t…most cases they will know the brand and model! This even helps when your doing phone estimates if you have photos of most brands’ windows.

Call Anderson and tell em what happened. Don’t know what everyone else’s experience is with them, but mine was a pleasant one. They were ALL very cool to me and gave me all the answers I needed. I’d be willing to bet the builder is in hot water.

I feel awful the builder and the home owners are both very nice to work with. Im hoping we can come to resolution that leaves us all with a good working relationship.

This is just my opinion, but you are a professional and are responsible to be an expert on every type of glass out there. So if it were me, I would accept full responsibility and replace the glass

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Has the builder or rep actually told you this is the Low E4? Because why would they only order one window in new construction Low E4? To do that someone had to specifically ask for it, so the builder (being nice) should have informed you, “by the way that fancy window has some kind of fancy coating”. And it being a custom window combined with Low E4 doesn’t really make sense unless they only make that design with Low E4, they really wanted the office to be super energy efficient?

Did the tech scratch the inside also, or change methods after seeing the exterior scratches, because the E4 should have scratched inside also with the same technique.

No they did not yet tell me. I expect them to when I arrive in the morning though. This is the only window that is Anderson I know for sure that the rest of them are marvins because I checked. I thought this was a marvin too although I couldn’t find a label on it. I talked to the builder and he said he was meeting with the Anderson rep. That’s when I looked up the Anderson windows and they are using the low e4 on all their custom windows. At this point I have no idea why they used just one Anderson. I cleaned the inside myself with no scratches, but the inside required less scrubbing.

Well, seems like a bad business move on Andersons part to force a long term unproven coating on people, but I guess it’s their business. That is very VALUABLE information for the rest of us to know though, crazy designs could mean crazy coating, so thanks for that!

So your builder may have let it slip through the cracks, probably architect or designer or homeowner picked the design and whoever he buys glass from filled the order as he requested, he probably does feel a little responsible but plenty of people could have been responsible, but ultimately Anderson has thrown a product out there that hinders everyone that touches it, in the name of technology.

How many times in the life of that window is somebody going to wash it like a normal window and it get scratched up, if you have to replace it, I would inform the builder and homeowner about the downfalls and try to persuade them to allow you to put any manufacturer but Anderson in, and let the rep know why you won’t be using them to replace.

Self Cleaning glass to a window cleaner sounds like robot to factory worker. What the hell is self cleaning glass I heard of it before but I denied its existence it sounds bad. I guess there is enough glass out there that doesn’t self clean. Is this the future of windows are we all gonna get replaced like the robots did to factory workers.?