I’ve only come across the pellas with the shade between the glass a few times and have never felt fully comfortable that I am removing or replacing them correctly, mostly I run a mile from them but have just been asked by a good customer to do 36 of them in a home they are maintaining
Does anyone with a bit more experience have a video or a good explanation on how to remove and replace them, There are 2 metal tabs and the thing for moving the shade up and down that is hinged
I tried to take my own pics but you cannot see anything in them, too dark
Hey Pat,
You poor guy! Actually I do a few houses with these. As irritating as they are, they’re not too hard to remove. If they have hooks on the bottom to attach to, just detach them first. Then the top of the blinds should slide in and out of a channel attached to the inside of the sash itself. Just pull them out and carefully lay the blind out nearby and don’t get it wet. It goes back together in reverse order. The tabs on the right side of the sash need to be moved (I forget which way exactly) to unlock the inserts.
Clear as mud?
Ive only done a few of these but I believe you have to move the tabs on the top and bottom over and then something with the side. Wish I could be of more help but once you mess around with one - the rest go pretty easy<
Sometimes you don’t have to remove them if it’s just a maintenance cleaning. Take your pella off, and raise them up manually with your hand. You won’t be able to wet the top inch or so of glass (as mentioned don’t get them wet) but if it’s a regular maintenance clean you won’t need to.
I wish I had a camcorder, I could make a pretty decent vid of how these work, both taking out and leaving in.
And Pat, they’re hinged, so you can open them enough to do a thorough job without taking the insert completely off. I have read that some take them off completely by doing something with the cord. Side 2 is probably low-e, so you need to check and treat it accordingly.
Yes, Dan is right the new design series are hinged. But, if you don’t have enough room, once you work the slider on the side to release it to open, follow the cord to the black connection. This is inside the window, there is a screw that you can remove. Then the panel comes right off after that plastic peice is removed from the frame.
The old Pella windows are much easier as already described. And yes, please charge accordingly. I have a love hate with Pella, I hate to clean them but I love the check
I have a house that literally has 100 pella windows that not only have the blind in between, they also have a wood divider between the panes. They are old, so they are not hinged, they have clips around the edges. Unclip the edges, pull the panes apart, remove the wood dividers and unhook the blinds. Then you clean 4 sides of glass, put the blinds and dividers back in, re-clip the edges and move on to the nex one. It took two of us two full days to do the 100 windows he had in the house.
Yes and if they haven’t been cleaned for a while the seals stick when you try taking them apart and you almost have to wear gloves to not get prints on them putting them back together. However, they are well made and if they have been maintained they are beautiful windows. If you price it right you make a good buck and enjoy working with something of quality.
Dale
We used to experience the same thing (getting finger prints on what we’ve already cleaned). We started cleaning pellas; the inbetween side of the storm and the inside of the window first and leaving the storms and windows to dry out then re-install the storm and wash the room facing side after re-installing it. If you do it right and have someone working with you who is decent it moves really quick this way with no fingerprints.
I do a few with grills and blinds too. Just not 100 in one house. The clearance between the shade and grill is so tiny that there issues with sticking. Not my favorite!
Yes I agree with Dale. Despite the extra hassle, Pella’s themselves are very nice windows to clean, and are among my favorites. Of course, as long as they are priced correctly.
I’ve never had any trouble charging extra for the additional work, and I think it might be because, at least in my case, my customers who have Pella windows chose them on purpose. So they’re a little more “window-conscious”. They know it takes extra work, and so they appreciate someone else doing it for them, [I]and [/I]the beautiful results once they’re done properly.
