The place is Nob Hill Bar & Grill. A Northwest Portland mainstay.

The year is 2009. Deep into the heart of the worst recession since the great depression of 1929-1939

Mainstay or not…many eatery/drinking establishments discovered they were no longer able to assume upon their long standing customer base,…

…and found themselves vying for whatever patronage there was left in the waning market. So apparently, it was time for a little facelift, or so we might assume.

Replacing the old, cold, sterile aluminum sliding windows with the beauty and warmth of Jeld-Wen’s wood sliding windows was just the ticket.

Jesse & Jared put on the finishing touches.

In the minds of so many, wood is a never changing classic, like Levi jeans, we might suppose.

Perhaps elevating what was beginning to look a little dark and dingy to a classy, rustic charm…

Indeed, our business saw a substantial increase in other business… employing us to enhance their curb appeal.

Between the wood windows and the $6.50 Street Car Special, we can’t imagine how folks could stay away.

Salem Arbys Project – 2007

BEFORE.

Your basic aluminum sliding window. Not unlike what you would find in a home.

AFTER.

You might not think that the difference between reaching up and manually opening the window as…

BEFORE.

…compared to the window opening-up automatically would translate into that much savings in…

AFTER.

…time, and thus money, but when they say FAST FOOD, they apparently want it “dispersed” as fast as the food is made.

Keizer Arbys Project – 2009

BEFORE.

As you can see, this opening had to be widened to accommodate the new window.

AFTER.

BEFORE.

If you look closely at the interior after-shots, you’ll see a BAR of sorts beneath the operable window.

AFTER.

The ends of the bar have motion-sensors. When an employee steps between those sensors, the window slides open automatically.

Unless we’re in the drive-through fast food business…

…it’s probably difficult for most of us to realize how much time, and thus money can be saved simply by eliminating the need…

…for an employee at the drive-through window to have to reach up and manually slide it open. And then to close it, as is…

…probably required by those governing the food service industry to keep the food preparation area separated from exterior contaminants.

Thus it is that most of the drive-through business has converted to automated windows.

Now days, an employee need only move close enough to the window to trip a motion-sensor that triggers a motor…

…to automatically open the window for them as they lean out with the food already in hand. Step away from the window, and it…

…automatically closes. For us, the greatest challenge installing one of these units, assuming it’s ordered to the correct specifications is…

…dealing with cosmetic issues related to the footprint of the original window assembly. That’s where the techniques we’ve developed over the…

…past several decades comes into play so that the installation doesn’t look like an afterthought.

Gresham Arby’s – 2009

BEFORE.

AFTER.

BEFORE

AFTER.

Lake Oswego Arby’s – 2006

Not exactly certain what happened to the “BEFORE” shots on this project, but we were unable to locate any.

But of all the ARBY’S automated windows we installed, this was the only one that wasn’t RED. This was also the only automated window that employed the use of a more traditional motion-sensor mounted up on the wall above the window.

We also installed an automated window at the “Aloha” Arby’s in 2007, but they have since ceased to exist, so we were unable to go back & acquire some AFTER SHOTS for this portfolio. As you may or may not have noticed with all these Arby’s projects, each building was…

…constructed differently. Some had stucco siding, some brick & some wood construction. The interior finish materials varied as well. The point being that we can contend with all the potential variables, including rebuilding the opening, if needed, as we did at the Keizer location.

It’s not unusual for our company to be called upon to install doors and windows…

…spec’d out and ordered by a general contractor on a job we weren’t even initially a part of.

The most important reason for this might be said to be having to do with all the lawsuits related to products…

…not properly installed and flashed, and the consequential water damage that has occurred.

Besides the benefit of nearly 3 decades of experience, we’ve been formally trained by a number of the largest door & window manufacturers.

We’ve also taken the Installation Masters certification training, although we found that to be much ado about nothing.

The three most common problems related to acrylic domed or flat skylights…

…some sort of impact, such as a tree limb falling off a tree during a wind-storm…

…which isn’t extremely common, but we’ve seen it. Number two is that acrylic…

…seems to grow brittle from the effects of the ultra-violet rays from the sun & begins to crack.

And number three is that the glazing may fail at some point.

Any of these three scenarios can and often does result in water penetration.

Understandably, this is when we are called upon…

…to apply our expertise, such as Brandon, our technician did here.

The American Plaza Towers Complex in Southwest Portland with an indoor swimming facility built in the 1960’s that incorporated the use of natural light.

All the glass in these picture windows had failed and the windows on one side of the bump-up had begun to leak at some point in time, rotting the wall beneath.

This, and the fact that washing these windows from the interior side was near on impossible, all culminated in the powers-that-be investigating the possibility…

…of having the windows replaced with an operable product that would allow cleaning both interior and exterior sides from the roof.

You might click on the photo to get a better view of the elaborate scaffold we had to come up with to span over the pool. Back to cleaning the windows, the only type of window that fit that bill once all the factors were considered, was an out-swing hopper window.

You might say an awning window would work, but you’d just about need to pretty much lie on your back on the roof to wash the interior side on an awning window, given the proximity of these openings to the roof.

Of course, one of the obstacles we ran into was the fact that nobody made an out-swing hopper window.

So we purchased Milgard Aluminum Awning windows and turned them upside down. We came up with our own latching system for use on the exterior. Interior latches would of course, have served no useful purpose.

We field prepped the windows for a weep-hole system in what was originally the top of the windows, now of course serving as the bottom, and we installed overhead drip-caps to deflect wind-driven moisture from gaining access at the top of these windows turned upside down.

Milgard’s sizing constraints necessitated that each array of sash consist of twice as many sash or glass-units as was original.

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.