Seems like anytime I come across brand new windows that have much-worse-then-average junk smeared all over them from the factory, I look and see that they’re Marvins.
Anyone else?
Hmm. Never noticed that Marvin is bad in this way. I will say they are for the most part very good windows and clean up well and are user friendly. Unlike Pella.
+100!
Agreed, they are nice windows. It just seems like they come out of the box much dirtier than any others that have gotten my attention. Was just curious if anyone else noticed this.
Could be the trades making a mess of them before you get to them.
I can agree, although I’ve noticed that although the hardware on Marvins is solid as a rock, the glass itself sucks. Hard water prone and clean glass feels strange under my squeegee.
This has been driving me CRAZY lately. Had a couple large jobs recently wih all new marvins, and I’m working on another one now. Nice looking windows, once you spend a rediculous amount of time scrubbing off silicone and glue…
I have been a glazer for 20 years an have noticed that many windows i install these days have excessive silicon. The salesman from old castle tells us it is a problem with the machines they use to make the IG units. I believe it is like everything else as of late, quantity before quality.
The quality just is not there anymore. And it is not getting good any better.
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I just did a post construction job last weekend on Marvins, and they were bad! This is the second time I have had trouble with them. Up until this year I have always loved the quality of Marvin windows. Luckily I was able to scrape most of these windows, only a couple were tempered/had fd issues. Last year I had Marvin job from hell. The customer had over 50 Marvin windows, all oversized. They were not supposed to be tempered, but Marvin tempered them for shipping safety purposes??!! The guys at the window dealer argued with me about it (I was positive they were tempered), finally another guy came in and confirmed I was right about it. It took me forever to get the windows clean, but I used the experience as a learning tool for alternatives for silicone removal.
We had a customer this summer who added 5 new Marvin windows. She did not let us know she had added new windows so we had to come back to clean off all the smeared silicone on all the cut up glass. We had to chage her a hefty sum becase the silicone was everywhere. What made it even worse is that two of the windows had marks inside the IGU .
We tried te Magic Eraser for this job. I was convinced that a piece of foam was a bad joke to remove silicone from windows. Well I was pleasantly suprised. Magic Erasers work great. If it were not for the Magic Erasers we would have been their twice as long removing silicone.
any tips you’d like to share? I like the magic erasers for light smudges and streaks, but the globs are harder for me, especially if I have to avoid scraping.
Magic eraser? good idea. I have not tried that yet. Oldcastle uses comet at least that is what they tell us I have not tried it.
you can scrape tempered. I have done it for years. will it scratch? It should not if manufactured correctly. Problem is that tempered is not as good as it used to be. Next time you find an old Anderson patio door from the 70’s or 80’s scrape it somewhere not noticeable. Pay close attention to the sound. nice and smooth. if you find a new tempered unit it will sound like sandpaper when scraped. One reason tempered scratches is because of excessive dust during the manufacturing process. Tempered glass is heated red hot then cooled quickly with air jets. These large company’s are only interested in the bottom line and the customer has to suffer. Or the glazers and window cleaners suffer I should say.
It’s not excessive dust, it’s glass fines on the rollers that cause fabricating debris. Dust won’t scratch glass, but breaking a glass fine off a tempered pane with a razor and dragging it will.
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Your right about old tempered glass being fine to scrape. I train my employees NEVER to scrape anything that is new or seems new I ('90s to now), and never, ever to scrape any doors or sidelights. I also spend a lot of time training them to test glass before scraping. Even with all the training, They can’t always tell the difference between old and new like we might be able to. So I make caution the rule and not the exception.
I have what I call “glass intuition”. Which means I can usually tell when I can and can’t scrape. You need to have an ear to the glass, and some people don’t have that heightened sense of sound. sounds like you have it.
It’s not the dust that scratches. the dust or debris coming into contact with the hot glass causes an uneven surface to the glass. When we scrape the glass with a blade the uneven surface scratches.
From my understanding it is debris In the oven coming into contact with the red hot glass that causes the glass to be rough. If you have ever witnessed a tempering oven the rollers do not touch the entire surface even if they do that is only one side the other side is untouched.
It can be debris in the oven, but that oven debris is a result of glass fines not being cleaned off well enough before it goes into the oven. Here is some info I took from Dan Fields website stopscratchedglass.com
WHERE DOES THE FABRICATING DEBRIS COME FROM?
Now that it’s clear why some tempered glass scratches, the next question is “Where does the fabricating debris come from?” To answer this question, we need to look back at how the tempered glass is made. The third step in the process was to wash the glass after it had been sized and ground, but not all glass manufacturers do an adequate job at this step. Most problems in this area are related to the lack of maintenance to the washer and tempering furnace. If the glass washer and tempering furnace are not properly maintained, fabricating debris will build, making them less effective in cleaning and tempering the glass. Due to this, the glass will exit the washer with much of the fabricating debris still present as the glass is sent into the tempering furnace. Once the glass is inside the furnace, the debris will begin to liquefy and fuse itself to the roller side surface of the glass and to the furnace rollers. It is this fabricating debris that causes the poor quality surface and the scratching on defective tempered glass. When a window cleaner removes construction debris from the glass surface, they also remove these defects, which scratch the glass as they’re moved across the glass surface.
Over time, the tempering furnace will also become contaminated with fabricating debris and must be serviced to clean the furnace rollers. To date, washing glass prior to tempering is not required or enforced by any regulation or standard.
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You probably already know most of this…
For Post construction, when its really bad I always quickly pre-wash to see what I’m dealing with. I then find any large globs, wet them, and lightly scrape the tops off the globs with a pocket scraper. I do this without touching the blade to the glass whenever possible.
I found a great spray product a couple years ago (intended to help keep window glazing soft while your working with it) that is alcohol based (who’s name I don’t remember and I’m too lazy to go outside to the workshop to find it…I have mentioned the product in other posts last year i think) When I use it with the magic eraser it makes quicker work of silicone removal. Basically you can use alcohol though. I just made a couple training videos on a post construction job…When I finish them I will send you a link.
Also, any time you use any products on glass you should try to keep the product away from the window glazing or seals.
Interesting site. not to argue with Dan because he knows what he is doing, however I find both surfaces rough on new tempered coming in from the factory everyday. My guess is they don’t wash it correctly.
Try from the late 70’s
The main reason your dealing with both the inside and outside of a window having fab debris is if they put it on the number 2 or 3 side of the window and can react with any type of coating that is on those sides and causes the fish eye effect you see occasionally
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