[MassHistPres] Markets for very old glass?

Alison Hardy, Window Woman ahardy at window-woman-ne.com
Sun Jun 10 18:48:36 EDT 2007


I restore windows for a living, and am constantly on the lookout for antique glass that we can recycle as almost every window has at least one broken pane and we try to match the age and character of the glass in a sash. So I'd be interested in your sash. The vital stat is size of pane, not size of sash. We can always cut down larger panes, but small ones have to be really special to be worth the effort to "harvest" the glass.

Alison Hardy
Window Woman of New England
Topsfield

Amy Bauman <abauman at greengoat.org> wrote: Hi Dennis --

I appreciate your perspective.  It's a different situation here ... these
windows had been previously uninstalled and stacked in a garage way in the
back of a property.  The garage is slated for demo, and the owner wanted
greenGoat to find an adoptive home for the windows.  The wood is completely
rotten.

So ... I was thinking that a cabinet maker might make the 'new style' window
cabinets out of them ... or something like that.

But on your point, I have been reading with great interest the thermal
efficiency of the old windows and do appreciate the logic there.

I should know better than to use the word "old" in this forum without
qualifying it.  I really mean wavy glass.  I honestly have no idea how old
the windows are, but figured that there had to be someone interested in the
glass itself.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Amy Bauman
greenGoat

-----Original Message-----
From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu
[mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu]On Behalf Of Dennis De Witt
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 5:08 PM
To: MHC listserve
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Markets for very old glass?


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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Alison Hardy
Window Woman of New England
www.window-woman-ne.com
978-561-1062



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