Etched glass repair is one of the hardest calls a storefront owner has to make. Spray paint and marker on a window come off with solvent and a scraper. A scratch from a key, a blade or a tube of etching cream stays, no matter what cleaner you try. This article explains why, what each […]
Condensation on office windows is the glass complaint we hear most often in November. Facility managers find wet sills, foggy panes and dark spots on the frames, and many assume the window leaks. In most cases the water comes from the room air, which drops its moisture on the coldest surface it touches. This guide […]
Yes, you can install window film in winter. The pause we hear most in November is “let’s do it in spring,” and it usually comes from a worry about rain and cold. Commercial film goes on the inside face of the glass, so the weather outside matters less than most people think. The real winter […]
When winter sun glare hits an office, the first request we often hear is for the darkest film available. In Seattle, that is usually the wrong choice. Dark film cuts glare on the few sunny mornings. It also takes daylight on every gray day, blocks free winter heat and puts more stress on cold glass. […]
Birds fly into windows because they cannot see glass. Clear glass looks like open air, and shiny glass looks like more sky and trees. Most of these deaths happen at homes and mid-size buildings, and October is when Puget Sound facility teams start finding birds under their windows. Here is why it happens, what fixes […]
Glass can break in an earthquake even if nothing touches it. The building sways, the window frames bend, and the glass gets squeezed until it cracks. In an office, these are often the panes people sit next to every day: conference room walls, glass partitions, and tall lobby windows. Here is why it happens, which […]
When a phone drops to one bar next to the office windows, the glass is usually the reason. Modern energy-saving glass carries a thin metal coating, and metal blocks radio signals. In most buildings, the glass was cutting the signal long before anyone mentioned window film. Film can add to the problem or stay out […]
Put three commercial window film quotes side by side, and the heat numbers rarely match. One says the film blocks 97% of the heat. Another says 60%. Most people would rank the 97% bid first, and that can be the wrong call. Those two numbers can describe the same film. 3M publishes both for its […]
From October to March, this is the most common complaint in a glass-heavy office. The thermostat reads 72. The person at the window desk is still cold, and changing the setpoint does nothing. The cold is coming off the glass itself. Your body sends heat toward that cold surface all day, and a thermostat has […]
Window film can contribute to a cracked pane. That is the honest answer, and it is the one most film companies skip. The longer answer is the useful one. Glass cracks from thermal stress when one part of a pane runs much hotter than another part. Film changes how much solar energy the glass holds, […]
Security window film is about 8 mils thick. That is roughly two sheets of printer paper stacked together. Business owners look at that and ask a fair question: how does something that thin change anything about a pane of glass? We get asked this on almost every security quote we write in Seattle, Bellevue, and […]
Will window film turn my building into a mirror? We get that question on almost every commercial quote we write in Seattle and Bellevue, and it’s a reasonable thing to ask. The fear traces back to one famous case. In 2013, a curved glass tower in London focused sunlight onto the street below and melted […]
