Pilkingtons Hard and Soft Coats, Part One

The Soft Coats are becoming harder these days.  But they are still not hard enough for manufacturers to expose them to the atmosphere.  Either inside or outside of a building.  So you will only find them on the second or third surface of an insulating glass unit.  Unless someone makes a very big mistake!  If they do you will notice after only three months the surface turning a different color and getting rather spotty.  At the very most they only have a storage life of three months.  Sales people warn the IG unit manufacturers to seal them up as quickly as possible.  What I am saying here is you should never have to deal with soft coats;...ever.

Hard Low E Coats are quite another matter.  The Soft Coats have a great number of different metal alloys layered to form the coating.  Hard Coats also have a number of different layers too.  The formula of which can also change every few years so don't think this makes SO much of a difference.  The outermost layer of Pilkingtons Energy Advantage for example is tin oxide.  So whatever chemicals react with tin oxide will degrade the surface of Energy Advantage.  That is if you happen to be in direct contact with it.  Because hard coats such as Energy Advantage can be applied to a surface in between the two plates of an IG unit.  It doesn't have to be like a soft coat.  But it certainly can be.  It can also be applied to the outside where you would come into contact with it.  So that would be number one or number four.  In fact in order to attain the greatest "energy advantage" in cold weather climates this hard coat can be applied to the number 2 and number 4 surfaces at the same time.

There are many other coatings out there which I will be looking at over time.  But right here and now we are going to look at Pilkingtons Energy Advantage.  I just picked up a couple of one by one foot squares of glass with this hard coat.  My question is if you are working on a building that you discover has silicone caulk, concrete, paint, stucco, or something else on the Energy Advantage Hard Coat, exactly what can be used to remove it safely?  This is non-routine window cleaning.  Further we are not working on glass but rather a tin oxide surface.  Which is VERY clear so it is very difficult to see.  There are electronic tools that will tell you in a moment if a window has any low e coatings and what surface they are on.  But just by using your senses you will notice right away that an Energy Advantage surface is quite rough to the dry touch.  When you move your dry thumb across it you will hear a sound.  Glass however will not make any sound.  This "roughness" is the reason why you should NEVER use a razor blade.  Not even if you have what you think is adequate lubrication.  In this video from the Glass Smart Product Development YouTube Channel I will show you exactly what I mean by "sound".  Pilkingtons Energy Advantage Low E Hard Coat is NOT of course the only Hard Coat that has this roughness about it.  But this is a sure way to determine that you are most likely in contact with a metal coating, not glass.  There is an electronic device you can purchase that will tell you instantly if the window has a low e coating and exactly which side it is on.  But here is the video.  Please go to this YouTube Channel and subscribe.  There will be many more short videos to follow.  Also if you are on your phone you might have to go directly to the Glass Smart YouTube Channel to see this video.  That address is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFfWdGaefeg

Written by Henry Grover Jr.
henrygroverjr@gmail.com

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