Ten years ago, as of the posting of this project on our website portfolio in 2014, this building was owned by a company called N.W. Pump & Equipment, who hired us to replace some of the damaged glass.

We don’t know who owns the building today, but as of 2014, it’s no longer a Chevron Gas Station, but rather a Union 76 Gas Station, as shown above.

Handling large pieces of single-pane plate-glass like this is always a bit disconcerting due to potential breakage. Fortunately, we know a few tricks of the trade to minimize the danger.

Although the two large sheets of plate-glass we replaced this time were both positioned right next to door openings, which translated into one of several types of safety glass, which lessons to danger of breakage and injury to us,…

…breakage would still have translated into a work stoppage and the temporary boarding-up of the opening(s). The point being that we still had to employ great care in the handling of the large panes of glass.

Just about everything about these old gas station structures with the sheet-metal exterior walls is unique, including the neoprene-boot (sample above) that sat around the perimeter of the glass…providing a sealed barrier between the glass and the aluminum frames.

It took us a bit of research to find a product that would work with the original extruded aluminum window frames, but we prevailed.

Technicians Nate Velazquez…

…and Rubin Sanders putting the finishing touches on the glass replacements.

The National Building Codes demand fire vents for most industrial buildings. Fire officials know that smoke…

…is the deadliest part of a fire. That’s why Section 910 of the International Fire Code mandates the use of…

…automatic smoke control systems in high-piled storage facilities and in most one-story buildings greater…

…than 50,000 square feet. Smoke vents eliminate the need to cut holes in the roof.

One of the first things firefighters do when they arrive at a fire is cut holes in the roof.

Smoke vents automatically open to vent toxic smoke and gases, reduce flashback and lower the building’s internal…

…temperature. Firemen can get into buildings faster to attack the firebase directly.

Apparently, someone at some point in time built these custom brackets (on the right) that subverted the fusible-link system on the original smoke hatches.

These are what the fusible-link devices look like on the new smoke hatches. When the link is broken from intense heat, it releases the spring loaded roller arm to open the hatch automatically.

Flowers by Tommy Luke Flower shop in S.W. downtown Portland on 12th street.

The store is beginning to unintentionally show the age of the building. Time for an entryway facelift. The original ill-fitting wood door is of course, the center of it all. One of those all-important first impressions you get.

Rubbing on the exterior soffit, and rubbing on the strike-jamb as evidenced by the marks on the door edge.

These antiquated hydraulic door closers are quite the novelty, displaying plenty of character, but lack some of the refined adjustments…

…of the modern hydraulic door closer, such as this LCN Model 4041.

This variation of the Adams-Rite model 1890 Latch/Lock was reinstalled into the new door.

If you enlarge this photo by clicking on it, you will see that we were also initially asked to reinstall the original flat-bar push-pull hardware that runs across the door.

But then we were later asked to return & install a slightly more elegant round push-pull bar ensemble.

Behold, the finished product which we custom-fit, machined and installed into the original jamb assembly, retaining all the original interior and exterior trim components.

The face lift. Compare this photo to the second photo (above).

Ill-fitting, sticky, hard to operate, weathered wood church doors with water-damage to the bottom-rails. This was an old church in Oregon City.

The doors were removed, the openings boarded up, the veneer on the bottom-rails was repaired, the doors were trimmed and adjusted for best possible fit and…

…operation, kick-plates installed to provide a modicum of protection on those bottom-rails. And then we stripped and refinished the doors. Not necessarily in that order.

Wood doors finished naturally on the exterior can be stunning.

But as these photos attest to, even doors with substantial protection and shade…

…succumb to the destructive effects of ultraviolet-rays where the afternoon sun reaches the door bottoms.

So what’s a person to do… The answer is one of three solutions.

1. Only finish doors naturally that face due North. 2. Inspect your doors & touch them up annually or semi-annually.

3. Pay someone like us to come in every 8 to 10 years or so to perform major surgery.

Our technician Jon Benson applies his craft with finesse and expertise.

New Oak Veneer lay over where the damaged wood was removed.

Just one of the many door & window repair skills gleaned from decades of experience.

Portland City Hall. When the doors of the local power brokers aren’t working…who ya gonna call…

Sorry. Couldn’t resist the temptation.

Yeah, were talking about the main entry doors. Just like people, we get old enough and used enough, and we begin to perhaps sag a bit and not work quite like we used to.

As you can see from this close-up shot, the door on the right is a bit lower than the door on the left. This sagging was translating into the door bottom hitting the vertical-rod strike-plate, which was…

…keeping the door from closing all the way & the electromagnetic locks weren’t locking. Part of it had to do with the joints between the Stiles & the Rails beginning to separate.

So master craftsman, Bruce Hickenlooper goes about the task of injecting adhesive into the pertinent joints, and…

…then applying the necessary pressure via clamps to close those joints back up. And for a little insurance and back…

…up for the adhesive, holes are drilled and steel anchors inserted to span and reinforce these joints.

Jared, our senior technician then fills the holes with wood dowelling…

…and the dowelling is then sanded down flush with the edge of the door.

A Historical Brick Mixed Use Apartment Building in N.W. Portland, built in 1911.

Back when fire rated doors and windows were steel encased wood sash.

And the fire-code allowed the use of “wire-glass.” Why fire-rated windows?

Adjoining building structure in close proximity. The operative notion being “extending containment via longer burn times.”

The problem we’ve been called to resolve? Loose & Missing Jamb Components have translated into extremely loose windows…

…and a non-functioning counter-weight system by which the window-sash fail to stay up when you open them.

And so our technicians Steve Hilt & Phil McNair employ their myriad problem-solving skills to replace what needs…

…to be replaced and rebuilding what needs to be rebuilt. Newly revamped jamb-legs…

…encased in a metal cladding. Sash cords reattached to the counterweights…

…and the window assembly is ready for another 102 years or so.

The North Park Lofts in the Pearl on N.W. 8th Avenue.

An upscale lifestyle highlighted all the more by contrasting the modern against the aesthetic of what used to be known as Portland’s old town.

Speaking of modern…how about some fancy German engineering in the form of some Tilt-Turn hardware on some rather large Vinyl Casement Windows?

Well…maybe not so fancy when it’s broken. It probably doesn’t show up in the photos, but as someone who repairs windows and doors, I have to ask what someone…

…was thinking when the spec’d out such large casement windows. But it’s Vinyl right? And vinyl is relatively light…so what is the concern?

Look again at the percentage of the window that consists of glass. That’s double-pane glass. German engineering or not…that’s a lot of weight on this ultra-complicated, highly (maybe overly)…

…engineered “Wink Haus” multi-point locking…multi-option hinging hardware. Do we really need multiple opening options when it comes to our exterior windows?

It’s kind of cool the first time you come across it, not unlike many novelties. But marrying this ultra-complicated hardware with a non-structural material such as Vinyl is a little like having a convertible car in the…

…Willamette Valley…not very practical because its structural integrity is going to be sorely and frequently tested. Once again, it may sound as though we tend to bite the hand that feeds us as we critique some of these…

…questionable marketing trends in the fenestration industry, but we do feel compelled to exercise a degree of candor with our clients about the maintenance side of these products.

The Original Bavarian Sausage Delicatessen in Tigard.

The insulated glass in the display cases has failed, which means that the air-tight seals around the perimeter has…

…suffered some sort of breach. A hole, a tear or possibly even just the disintegration of the butyl-membrane.

The glass units are 12′ wide, which as you can see in this photo, required Jared to use the passenger door to get in and out of his van. Add to that, the fact that the original glass was triple-glazed,…

…which means they use three panes of glass to create the insulated units, and you may be able to understand some of the logistical challenges we faced on this project, handling the glass.

I am not a fan of triple-glazed glass. For the most part, I view it as a gimmick, like the Argon-gas option. Something to give the buying public a…

…sense of value in trade for the enormous amount of money that certain window manufactures want to charge.
But besides the fact that it increases the odds of seal…

…failure by a factor of two, there are all kinds of problems related to the added weight that is brought to bear upon operable windows & their related components.

Obviously, as door & window mechanics, this is something we would tend to think about. Thus it is that the replacement glass we installed here was not triple-glazed.

Southwest 9th & Burnside St.

The North Pacific Building.

If you enlarge the previous photo, you might be able to see the STRAPS being used to keep the glass from falling out of the window sash.

As one might imagine, these awning windows might tend to actually catch & collect water at the top of the bottom-rail when it rains. No doubt, sorely testing the original putty-glazing.

Old growth, tight-grain Fir Wood-Species, and the protection afforded by Lead-Paint aside, it’s probably not too difficult to imagine why these windows would be showing their age about now.

So it was that we were contracted to temporarily board-up the opening…

…after which we brought the sash back to our shop & fabricated and installed a new bottom-rail.

After which we the repaired window sash was returned to the job-site…

…one early morning for reinstallation.

Another 100 years of use? Who knows?