[MassHistPres] Markets for very old glass?

[Dennis De Witt]

With the greatest respect, is there no way to preserve the "very old"  
windows in your client's building?  If they are replaced with  
insulating glass it will fail in 20 or 30 years and the new sash will  
have to be replaced -- and so forth in a never ending vicious cycle,  
in which the marginal energy savings (vs. good storms) will never  
justify the cost of the replacements.  If they are repaired and  
fitted with storms, they still will be there 100 years from now.

Also, these seem large sizes to be "very old."

I know a window maker in the back woods of Maine who usually has a  
few stacks of old 1/1 or 2/2s leaning up against trees weathering to  
make them easy to disassemble, in case he has to make sash for some  
unreasonable like like me who doesn't wants dead flat glazing (not to  
mention the "fun-house mirror effect you get from insulating glass).   
He gets them from a local vinyl window guy.

For the reason cited above, it would be worse if someone used your  
client's glass to make insulating glass.  That would guarantee they'd  
be permanently lost.

By the way, if by "Thermal panes" you mean the original "Thermopane",  
that was a great product with all-glass edges, permanently  
hermetically sealed, which would last forever.  That is what all  
those Anderson casement windows in the '60s & 70s used.  That glass  
will outlive the sash.  Unfortunately the universal modern, cheaper  
to make, organically sealed (i.e. butyl, etc.) insulating glass drove  
true Thermopane out of production in the mid-80s -- and we are just  
now arriving at the point where the first big wave of those  
organically sealed insulating glass replacement windows are getting  
to be 20 years old.

Dennis De Witt




On Jun 10, 2007, at 8:46 AM, Amy Bauman wrote:

> Hi all --
>
> I have a client who is discarding quite a supply of very old  
> windows.  I
> haven't made an exact count, but I'd say 15 or so 15" x 30", and 20  
> or so
> 50" x 50".
>
> Question is this - are there any local window makers who use old  
> glass to
> make windows with a historic look?  It'd be even better if someone  
> used them
> to make thermal panes, but I think that's unlikely.
>
> Any ideas for markets for these would be much appreciated.
>
> Thanks
>
> Amy Bauman
> greenGoat
> www.greengoat.org
> 617-666-5253
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