I have a residential job that has plastic grilles installed on anderson windows. I have no experience with them. I have spent plenty of time with the traditional wooden grilles with the metal clip, but these plastic ones are new to me.
The grilles are very tight in the frame and the customer mentioned she broke a couple installing them too and was reluctant to have me remove them until she saw the price for cleaning them with the grilles installed.
Anyone have some experience with these, any tips fore dealing with them?? I’m not touching them until i’m confident I won’t break them, when I gave them a slight tug to see how easily they would pop out, they had no give at all.
How are they held in? How long have they been installed? Lot’s of times the sun bakes that plastic and it becomes brittle and very breakable. Is it plastic against plastic or plastic against a painted wooden frame?
The house is new within a few years in a new subdivision. the grilles are all plastic white “fake french panes” they don’t have clips, but look like they have a little bump that fits into a notch in the window frame, but I couldn’t tell exactly what.
If they are old and brittle, is the only option to treat it like it were real cut -up panes and spend all that time wiping up the drips?
How big is the gap between the grill and the frame of the window? Can you fit a 5 way painters tool between to help dislodge the frame? The broad surface of a 5 way would help keep a lot of pressure from being in a localized area, which can crack the grille.
I have a house full of plastic grids on Anderson windows too. There are tabs on every end that slip inside the frame. You just have to get your fingers under the grid somewhere in the middle of the window and pull. The only way to dislodge the tabs is to bend the grid. Coincidentally, this is also the only way to reinstall them - to bend the grid.
We get lots of these. Since they are new…you should be fine. like Rob said its a small “tip” that fits into the side of the frame. There should be one for each peice that touches the frame. We start at the top ones…start about 1-2 inches from the frame, and pull. It will feel like they are going to snap. Once you get the first ones out…your golden
Start on a window that is somewhat out of sight(garage, basement). Cleaning these like true cut ups will be a PITA
Use two hands. Start in the middle, pull out the grid a little and hold it. Take your other hand and bend and pull (carefully) the point where the grid enters the frame. There not that hard to deal with. I have yet to break one but you have to be careful. I have found if you apply just a little more flex to the bend it’s easier to make sure you do not scratch the frame. I do this work all the time. Just did a job on Saturday and the wife came to help. I showed her no less then 6 times how to remove and reinstall. Later that day I found her trying to get one in the window. She told me she was trying for 5 minutes. I told her, you are wasting time, just call me and I’ll do it. I took the grid and popped it back in, in a couple of seconds. Needless to say she got upset lol.
