Time was that people fixed things.
You could find nearly anything you needed at the hardware store. It’s not really a thing today. Back when I was a kid, if you sent a ball through the house window, your old man took you to the hardware store and you had to buy the glass, glazing points, and glazing putty and he showed you how to fix it.
Luckily, that wasn’t me. But it happened to my friends in both wood framed and steel casement windows. Even a decade ago or so, I had to fix a window in my crappy house in Plano. It was easier than I remember. Gone was the putty and glazing point. In was the silicon and plastic strips. Not tough. Not expensive whatsoever.
So when I busted a window here trying to moosh a fly, I thought “Big deal. It’ll be cheaper and easier for me to fix this than to have the rental company do it”. Or so I thought.
What a pain in the ass. Pressed a little too hard.
So off I went to find the parts. Neither Home Depot or Ace cuts glass. Luckily, Lowe’s does and the dude doing it followed my measurements exactly, measuring before and after to make sure it was right. It wasn’t bad – $30/pane. I need two, as you can see the one on top cracked too. Fuck me.
What they didn’t have was the plastic strips. No one has them. No one knows what they are called. They used to be right by the glass section, if memory serves. Nope. I figured I’d be careful removing the old ones and reuse them.
Nope. They cracked to pieces. So I figured I’d put in the pane with silicon and circle back when I found the strips. I did the bottom one. I’ll leave the top for when I’m better prepared.
Busting out the glass was easy. I used a carpet knife to peel the glass off the aluminum. Cleanup was a pain in the ass that involved scraping with a screwdriver and wire brush, then cleaning with acetone. Ran a bead of silicon sealer and pressed the new pane in;
Luckily I had enough of the strips to click the glass in place.
Hardest part so far as been not only finding the strips, but finding out what they are called and where I can get them.
Turns out, they are glazing beads. I need to write that down somewhere. Home Depot only has black online. Lowes doesn’t have it at all. The guy at Ace said they used to have them, but haven’t in years. Amazon has them, as does this site. With Home Depot and Amazon, I’d have to buy 25 strips, 72″ each. Yeah. No. The other site had a better deal, so I bought what I need there.
I’m stuck until I get the beads delivered. At least the window itself is fixed. The rest will be easy.
It was a good day to do this, since it’s been rainy and thundery all day. The window faces the patio and is under the awning. So I’ve been cool and dry working.
I’m $120 into it so far, which isn’t bad. That’s probably less than what I’d have to pay to have the rental company fix it. I don’t have trouble fixing things I broke.
Inspected By Pat 