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Broken Seal On Double Glazing...my Fault?

windyman

Member
Messages
468
Right, we all know this can happen on a window & it goes all cloudy/misty between the panes of glass.

Over the years I've had to point this out to customers when they think I've not cleaned it properly etc.

BUT...

Over the past few weeks I've started to get paranoid. A few months ago, I switched a few houses that'd I'd been tradding over to WFP.

One woman said the seal had gone in one window & asked if it could've been caused by the change to WFP. To which I politely said no way.

Since then, especially the past few weeks, I've started to notice a lot more of my customers windows where the seal has gone and they're cloudy in between the glass.

At first I thought I was just noticing them more since she had mentioned it. But today, I noticed at least 5 windows on different houses where seal had gone...and I'm pretty sure it wasn't before.

I must have noticed more than a dozen over the past few weeks. I'm starting to get very worried.

It can't be me can it?? It's only a soft brush...anyone else had a problem like this or even heard of WFP causing this??

Please help, thanks.

 
It can never be you it is called blown glass i have 2 on my house it is a break down of the double glazing

when a sealed unit has failed the perimeter edge sealant is allowing air to enter the cavity between the glass this in turn takes moisture into the cavity.

 


when a sealed unit is first manufactured the normal method of construction is two sheets of glass with an aluminum spacer bar to hold the glass apart,. the two longest lengths of spacer are filled with dessicant crystals, and the perimeter edge sealed .known as hermetically sealed.


 


when the perimeter edge sealant fails for whatever reason the moisture is drawn into the cavity the crystals absorb the moisture.but when full they cannot absorb any more moisture so condensation is formed between the pains. the dessicant initial job is to de hydrate the air trapped in the cavity when first sealed.



 
I remmeber when I was working for someone, her seal on her window just packed in. She phoned the boss and said this is the 3rd time your workers have left water on my window, we went back to the house and tried to point out what was wrong, she was having none of it. She told us to wash the window when she was watching, so we did. She then turns round and says were not wiping it off correctly lol. We had to let her go up the ladder (it was a down staire house, 2-3 runs max) and see for her self. Some old people are just stubberin lol

 
It's extremes of temperature that cause premature failure of seals, not wfp, eventually they will all die of old age but some will last longer than others. I see some units that are perfectly good after 25yrs and others that are futou after only five.

 
As above.

I've heard people say the water busts them! HELLO!!! What do you do when it rains /emoticons/smile.png

 
Thanks for explanation.

I knew it was a broken seal, but just seem to be seeing a lot of them on my work!

Thanks for reassurance.

 
Condensation is caused by warm, moist air hitting a cold surface. The moisture is held in suspension. What can happen when we come along with our wfp systems is that we then cool the outer pain of glass disproportionally to the inner pane and the moist air contained in the dg unit. The moisture will then accumulate on the glass where it hadn't been before we called. We haven't caused the moisture in there, just caused it to appear.

Another misconception is that it is a vacuum in the sealed unit. It isn't, just the air is trapped. As has already been stated, silica gel (desiccant) is used to absorb the moisture in that trapped air to give clear vision/glass. The desiccant can only absorb so much. I have seen water to a level of approx 2 inches in the sealed unit!!

 
I've just bumped a similar topic from october ref broken double glazing
Also south facing windows always seem to fail first. If it was WFP then the north facing would also go at the same time.

 
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