Are your windows broken, and the glass is still sort of in one piece, at least still upright in the window?

IF THIS IS AN EMERGENCY AND YOU NEED A BOARD-UP SERVICE, PLEASE CALL YOUR LOCAL SERVPRO

• **WEAR GLOVES AND EYE PROTECTION WHEN WORKING NEAR BROKEN GLASS!**
• **Be warned that any adhesive and tape can damage or discolor the frame.**

Typically when you have broken glass it's only one(1) pane on a multi-pane insulated unit, as such you can sometimes skip board-up and use a strong adhesive tape to hold the glass until replacement can occur.

If it's one(1) pane on a single pane window, you can sometimes get away with still taping-up the glass to the frame and it will help keep the elements out of your home.

Annealed/Hardened Glass:  

This glass breaks in larger & sharper pieces, and the cracks are one to a few in longer lines. You can tape these up with just about any tape that you may have access to. Some tapes work better for this than most tapes will.

We recommend packing tape, duct tape, or Carpet Shield 

• **WEAR GLOVES AND EYE PROTECTION WHEN WORKING NEAR BROKEN GLASS!**

• **Be warned that any adhesive and tape can damage or discolor the frame.** 

   

Tempered/Safety Glass:

This glass breaks into many, many pieces all at once at 3,300 mph (Mach 4.45) In some instances the glass will not fall out of the window/door right away. If you apply Carpet Shield to the broken-glass side before it falls out, you will see that the broken glass will stay in position for at least 12 - 16 weeks. Long enough to get replacement glass sized and ordered.

Be sure to overlap the seams of the Shield by a couple of inches or if using tape, overlap itself by half each time for a greater hold, and in most instances be sure that the tape is being applied to all the way onto the frame edge. 

• **WEAR GLOVES AND EYE PROTECTION WHEN WORKING NEAR BROKEN GLASS!**
•    **Be warned that any adhesive and tape can damage or discolor the frame.**    

If you don't feel comfortable applying tape to the widow, let us know after you accept the quote and we'll bring some Carpet Shield with us and put some on at the final measure at no extra charge to you.* Carpet Shield is a translucent product that is 24" wide. That makes it a time saving, and more robust way to keep the glass in its original position while we wait for its replacement.

*Not all breaks can be or should be taped.

 Low E glass reflects a much higher percentage of heat back into your home than standard uncoated glass.

The first of the big advantages of low E glass is the supreme insulating power it adds to your windows. Low E glass has higher insulative properties than standard uncoated glass thanks to its low-emissivity film, thus making those harsh winters a fair bit warmer for your home’s inhabitants.

Adding the soft-coat low E film allows your glass to have an emissivity as low as 0.05. So, when combined with other insulating tech, such as warm-edge spacer bars, low E glass can be used to create an IGU (insulated glass unit) of real insulating potential. Double-glazed units made with low E glass, and the aforementioned IGU tech, can have a U-value as low as 0.9!

Translating this into a real-world scenario, low E glass might be the one for you if you have pesky family members fiddling with the thermostat on a regular basis. With your home now that bit warmer from November to March, familial thermostat offences could be reduced to an all-time low.

When it comes to the advantages and disadvantages of low E glass, there aren’t many more compelling arguments for its installation than its insulating power. From this sprout many other advantages that we’ll cover now…

In the blazing summer months, Low E Glass greatly helps to keep your indoor conditions a comfortable temperature.

Remember how we said a low E coating reflects heat? Well this isn’t purely limited to an insulating capacity. Look out your window, what do you see? Admittedly, there is a good chance that the answer is simply “clouds”, but often there is quite literally a gigantic ball of fire in the sky hurling all sorts of radiation at your windows, particularly between the months of May and September. Potentially making for some sweaty indoor summer conditions.

As we explain HERE the positioning of a soft-coat low E surface layer must be contained within an IGU. So, if you were looking at a double-glazed window from the outside, the very outer surface and the very inner surface are off limits – leaving you with two sealed internal surfaces to which a low E coating can be applied. The surface used is generally the internal surface of the outer pane.

Putting the coating here has some optical benefits, but also allows the IGU to have lower solar gain statistics. Essentially, in much the same way that low E glass reflects heat back into the house, thermal energy from the sun is reflected away from your home. A low E coating in combination with a tint is often referred to as “solar glass”, and can have a solar heat gain coefficient (g-value) of as low as 0.14 – meaning 86% of solar thermal energy is reflected away from your home. Thus, creating a cool, comfortable indoor summer environment – another of the big advantages of low E glass.

Applying this to another real-world scenario, kids take ages to eat ice creams. Before you know it, it’s all over their clothes, your clothes, the floor, the settee, the ceiling, the family pet, everywhere. Comfortable Summer indoor temperatures aside, the solar reflective properties of low E glass may very well increase the refractory period between the initial scoop, and the first drip.

Low E Glass prevents almost 100% of UV radiation from reaching the interior of your home

Through a similar mechanism to which thermal radiation is reflected, low E glass is also able to prevent the vast majority of UV radiation from entering your home. This not only protects your family, but also your furnishings, as UV light has a particularly annoying habit of having a sort of bleaching effect on your carpets and fittings, causing them to lose their colour.

The way this UV protection works is a bit science-y. Remember the radiation chart from your science classes in school? Essentially radiation comes in different forms dependant on its wavelength. For example, a heat source emits infrared waves, which have a longer wavelength than visible light, among other things the sun emits Ultraviolet waves, which have a shorter wavelength than visible light. Without getting too technical, the coating on low E glazing is able to resist these specific wavelengths of radiation pretty darn effectively, whilst still allowing a portion of the visible light waves to pass through.

The most effective low E windows stop almost 100% of UV radiation from entering your home, keeping your family safe and your furniture un-discoloured.

 Firstly, as mentioned soft-coat low E glass contains its low-emissivity coating on a surface sealed within the unit, this means the coating is less likely to be damaged or scratched, and will likely retain the vast majority of it’s insulating, sun-reflecting and UV protecting powers for many years.

Low E glass also does not prohibit the addition of other useful features such as increased security, noise-proofing or easy-cleaning technology.

Low E glass makes your home more energy efficient, potentially saving you money on your heating bills, and performs better than standard double glazing.

This reduction in your heating bills correlates to a reduction in total energy usage, reducing your carbon footprint.

Finally, low E glass reduces the glare from light sources compared to standard uncoated glass.

One of the disadvantages of Low E Glass could be a loss of natural light transmission, depending on your preference.

The first of the disadvantages of low E glass is a bit of a room divider. Depending on the way you look at it, this could be an advantage or a disadvantage. In our opinion it’s probably both. It could fall into the “disadvantages of low E glass” category, because natural light entry to your home will be diminished through these particular windows, ranging anywhere from a 25% to an 85% reduction, dependant on the specification of the units you choose.

But this could also be seen as an advantage, because having 100% natural light coming in through your windows would be annoying for myriad reasons; increased glare, and associated increased UV and thermal radiation, entering your home being top amongst them.

A window that reduces natural light transmission gives you a choice. You can have the slightly darker, un-glare-y atmosphere of a closed window, or simply open it and let the light shine on in.

The initial cost of installing low E units is higher than installing standard uncoated glazing – one of the disadvantages of low E glass.

Now initially this one is one of the disadvantages of low E glass. None of us like shelling out more than we have to – especially when there are cheaper alternatives out there. A soft-coat low E glass unit is generally more expensive to purchase for your windows than an uncoated standard toughened glass unit.

However, this extra cost you pay for this glazing type initially, with its powerful thermal insulating properties, may very well lead to savings in your heating bills compared to standard uncoated glass. Potentially meaning the money you’d save initially installing standard glass could be lost on heating bills in the future, due to their inferior insulating ability.