Blown seals on windows

[relliott]

They have the same talk about this at TIJ right now.
I guess there is a company charging 50 bukaroos a pop clearing them out.
They use a dessicant

[rdawes]

One possible cause is that they were jammed into a tight frame. Many times the framers don't leave enough space on the top, bottom, and sides to allow for framing expanison. The frames squeeze the window and the seal is lost. The manufacturer won't honor the warranty because they were not installed properly. The directions are pasted on every window in English and Spanish but they still get ignored. I've seen it several times when doing pre-drywall inspections.

[dcook1]

Originally Posted by badair

While we're on this topic has anyone had experience with any of the so-called window defogger companies?

Barry,
I did one house in Oct two years ago. I showed the buyer the holes in the corners where they companies had "repaired" the window. By Feb all the "repaired" windows were fogged.
I am currently monitoring some windows done on a real Estate office that were done a year ago. To date they have not fogged, but I heard from one realtor in the office they were having a problem with them, but he was not sure what exactly was wrong. He said they were being replaced.

As Roy said the little plugs are not a great item and here in Ontario where the weather is all over the place in one day, they are not a great way to save money.

And as Ronald said, many times the instalation is wrong. When I apprenticed as a bricklayer, many time we would be told to fill the gap betweeen the brick and the wall tight with mortar. And there in your face, is the tag that read to leave a 3/8 gap.

[Howard Tennyson]

Can I get some of your comments concerning lost seal/fogged windows?

Thanks

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by pkelley

My Question is "what are some of the possible causes for there to be so many blown seals in one house"

Somewhere....nearby....there may live an openly gay walrus......

[Nick Gromicko]

http://www.nachi.org/condensation-do...ed-windows.htm

[Kenton H. Shepard, CMI]

Seals, shmeals, conger eels... I seen a lot of double pane window assemblies out of their frames and have never yet seen one with seals.

Every one I've seen has had a rectangular, dessicant-filled aluiminum strip assembly with the panes adhered to it's sides with some type of sealant. no seals involved.

On the other hand, every window has had a breather tube installed connecting the space between panes to the outside air so that it could be manufactured at one altitude and trucked to a jobsite at another altitude without exploding or imploding.

When the windows are installed, the installer cuts off the breather tube with a pair of side cutters and tucks it up out of sight behind the frame.
The sidecutter crimp where the tube is cut is supposed to make the tube airtight, but I've always had my doubts that it really does.

Some of the dessicant strips are as narrow as 1/4", meaning that they hold less dessicant than wider strips and will saturate sooner.

Maybe windows suffer sealant failure, although it looks like a pretty simple process to install it correctly and they've been making these things long enough to know what works. It's always some black colored stuff.


I think it may not always be the same cause.

• It may be a manufacturing defect and bad sealant fails
• It may be sealant that's not installed correctly.
• It may be a home in a humid climate that experiences a lot of solar pumping.
• It may be a poorly installed or poorly cut breather tube.
• It may be some or all of these