Hey,
Just finished cleaning a house for a past client; they moved into a new house that they built this year. The contractor had a company come in and do the CCU and I just went in about six months after and did a regular cleaning for the inside and out windows.
Everything was going good, noticed some big scratches in a few places and pointed out to the customer… and then as the sun started to set doing final walk around every single window appeared to have massive LoE damage: spider webbing, gray haze looking smears in between the glass… anyone seen this before? I didn’t touch the glass with anything except GG and no blades came out. Customer understands and is going to contact building.
I’m just super curious. How does every window get mangled this bad? Tried to take a few pics but nothing turned out.
By the way… it was every window that the sun was hitting, and covering big parts of the windows - some the entire window looked shot.
Could the company who done the CCU maybe used a chemical that reacted with the glass? Like Crystal Clear 550?
It sounds like steel wool was used on the Low E coating, it is removable if you can access the low E surface.
Possible, never used that before or seen how it reacts. Would it be like what this job sounded like? Super foggy looking glass with spider webbing on some windows? I have no idea how they cleaned it. Most of the debris was off so they must have gone hard with something. Some big scratches so guessing at least they were bladed…
What does the 550 look like reacting with the LoE? I always thought LoE was in between the panes usually? Would this be if it’s on the outer surface? Thanks for the reply, looking forward to learning more about it.
Would the LoE have to be on the outer surface of the glass? Or do you mean at some time during fabrication? This is why i don’t do much CCU man! If the LoE is on the outer surface, and they used steel wool that would explain every surface being torn up… one thing is the front door glass - that thick tempered glass - not sure technical name had the fog too a little in a vertical line over about 50% of the glass… could have been a heavy gauge wool, but that wouldn’t explain the ‘smeary’ look of the rest of the windows would it? Wish there were pics for you guys but nothing turned out. Looking forward to learning more… thanks for the reply.
Any info on how to remove if its LoE, and whether you mean hardcoat on the ext. surface or not?
550 and that kind of glass can react. It can look milky or like you say foggy.
But it doesn’t make scratches. That have to be by razor I guess.
What I’ve learned is that the coating is often placed on the inside of the pane.
If it is an exposed coating u cant use any type of metal or it will produce a black residual mark resembling what ever was used
over here in the UK if you look at the glazing bars in between the panes ,it has LOW e stamped ,also on the glass itself in the corners . iv only seen LOW E on the outside surface and its now becoming very popular on conservatory roofs too. it never cleans well as it resembles a plastic/teflon coating and its marketed as being self cleaning- yeh right . i predict itll be a disaster as the finish will wear off over time . you can never scrape it without it marking. once i realize that this is the type of glass the homeowner has i make sure they are removed from my customer list as soon as convenient for me to do it quietly with no fuss. let some other charlie take the hit for the low e problem further down the line
It wont be low e if its on the outside exposed to the elements. Its likely you are dealing with self cleaning glass with a titanium dioxide coating. Its also not fun to clean.
From what I read on here most low e coats in the USA are not accessible due the fact they are sandwiched in IG unit. Which we don’t really have here. Not sure about the UK but I would imagine they are more like the USA than aussies.
Low-e is always on the #2or#3 surface of an ig unit. Low emissivity coatings will react unfavorably to the elements causing spotting therefore is placed in inside the unit. You are dealing with another issue.
