Protection Products

There are many different types of glazing surfaces out there.  There is glass, low e metallic coatings, mylar/polyester, plexi/acrylic, and lexan/polycarbonate.  All of these can be destroyed by concrete, stucco, mineral deposits, silicone caulk, silane sealant runoff, paint, wood stain, and much more.  Once these get on the window it becomes very difficult to remove them without scratching or doing other harm to the surface.  Therefore the best way to handle this problem is to protect the surface in my opinion before the windows are even put in storage.  Which is done sometimes months before they are installed in the building.  Damage can be done to the windows even at the factory where they are manufactured.  So it is good to have them properly inspected when they arre at the construction site and then protected with a protection product before they are placed in storage.

There are two basic protection products.  Permanent and temporary.  Permanent products are usually wipe on sealants such as Nanovations NG 1010.  Those which are temporary are strippable brush or spray on coatings that are easy to peal off at the time of cleaning.  Other temporary products are films that are self clinging and are applied as sheets.  At the time of cleaning such films are pulled off.  Sometimes you might get a static shock when doing this.

Since there are so many different surfaces, with different contaminants, and different protection products;...this is truly a technology.  It requires much testing in the lab.  But also in the field.  So I always recommend field testing at least a patch of one window and trying out some concrete or paint to see if it is going to work.  Glazing surface protection before, during, and after construction should always be practiced.  This is a technology that every window cleaner that does post construction work should learn.  But it is not window cleaning.  Just like restoration work is not.  

Here is a short video of one protection product which is a brush on strippable coating.  I will be preforming many other tests on this product and putting them on the Glass Smart YouTube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKzhmAWtlsHJiwRd6WrgGyA

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Written by Henry Grover Jr
henrygroverjr@gmail.com