Im starting to notice old castle glass more often in my area (especially with small windows next to the front door for some reason). I can clearly see where other window cleaners have already scratched the glass. So how are you guys dealing with it? Can you use steel wool? Or will that scratch too?
Thats where we see the majority of our Old Castle glass as well as the door. We don’t scrape Old Castle glass at all. I explain to the customer about FD and how Old Castle is notorious for FD laden glass so we won’t be scraping it. I’m not sure about steel wool and FD.
Yeah, Tony would be the one to say weather it does or not. Personally I have 2 storefronts with old castle crap and its scratched up pretty good. I have a 7 story building where the penthouse suite has nothing but old castle except for the glass on the outside of the building. Its horrible. Normally I just walk away if I see the stamp and just refuse to clean it. The people that have it are so jaded about window cleaners scratching their glass, what I have found is that when I try to explain that it was not their window cleaner and why they just don’t want to hear it.
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Someone please post up the identifying stamp for Old Castle. We see very little of it in Florida, and I don’t have any customers with it I can take pictures of.
We have tons of it here in Ohio, and usually it lives up to its bad reputation; very few exceptions. Get your waivers signed. On campuses where there is a variety of glass at different buildings, the contrast is obvious to the customer. It’s clear to them (if they care) you’re not making this up.
Plenty of that junk here too. I can’t remember the what their stamped logo looks like, but it’s prominent on the glass.
It simply says old castle. Heres the logo.
That kind of sucks that its our job to worry about another companies bad workmanship.
So you guys don’t recommend any way of cleaning old castle then?
Here’s my way for cleaning Old Crapple glass - get waiver signed and clean it like any other piece of glass. If the FD is bad enough steel wool can also dislodge it. I have seen pieces of FD on OC that could be seen from 5 ft away! The stamp has their name on it - Old Castle.
I’ve got a first clean to do this Saturday that has Old Castle glass. There are about 15 transom panes where the painter got a lot of paint on the glass while painting the frames. I told the owner I’ll need to use a metal scraper to get the paint off and also a signed waiver due to fab debris. He understood completely and agreed to sign the waiver because he wants the paint taken off the glass.
I don’t mind cleaning Old Castle as long as the owner signs the waiver after I explain fab debris issue to them.
I did a construction clean up on a car dealership maybe 3 months ago and I’ve cleaned it monthly since. I was not thrilled about doing the final clean because it was all Old Castle glass and I knew how bad Old Castle is. I got a waiver signed and cleaned the windows.
The glass is fine - no fabrication debris spotted yet. Old Castle glass that’s not defective!! WOW!
Here’s my point — They CAN produce quality glass. They just don’t do it often.
So, do you stop scraping when you notice fabricating debris?
Since the windows I’m dealing w/ are filthy by the time you could tell the difference between the dirt and FD the window is already scraped. Also I don’t assume that since one window has the defect that the others will. I explain to the customer that I am not responsible for determining the presence or absence of the defect. That should be done by the manufacturer or builder. If I claim to be able to identify the presence of the defect then I place myself in the liability loop. Also, by the time you think you’ve noticed FD the damage is done. Without a waiver and customer education you’d be in a problematic situation. The customer has been told I’m there to remove the dirt from the window not take care of someone else’s defect.
Tony I know your passionate about the FD issue, but it sometimes seems like your saying, I have a waiver, too bad that your windows are ruined. If you realize or suspect the windows have FD on the first window what would you do?
I make it part of my customer education to explain very completely that I can not confirm or deny the presence of FD. There is no reliable field test for FD.
I know some think it’s our responsibility to fix this issue. I disagree. Since the windows left the factory w/ FD they were ruined before I got there. The customer has called me to remove the dirt from the windows. I choose to use the industry standard tool to remove it. I get the waiver signed to protect me from a possible defective product which cannot positively be identified until after the fact.
If it is just paint splatter, try using product like goo gone with a white pad.
Hmmm… What i’ll probably end up doing is using a rugged strip washer. I know FD isn’t my fault, but id rather not burst the bubble of any customer that has FD and leave them with scratched windows, even when I do get a waiver signed. Im thinking from now on that I will only scrape new castle if the customer wants me to.
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I’ve yet to witness scratches on fabricating debris-laden glass while using 0000 steel wool or 000 bronze wool.
You should provide customer education and get a signed waiver on every service, CCU or maintenance.
YOU are the professional, not the customer. YOU should be making decisions and explaining actions, not the customer.
My customer today had 59 tempered glass windows, all Old Castle. The tempering mark was a simple “OLD CASTLE” followed by their specific info.
No fabricating debris was present, though the 5-year-old windows included 2 blown seals, 5 panes with Low-E sputtering issues, and 5 ill-fitting screens.
