A solarium or, as some would call it, a Sunroom on the back of a house in Tigard.
Our client wants to put his house on the market, but…

…thinks it best if the radiused insulated glass units that have failed are replaced before allowing prospective buyers in to view the home.

So we hatched a plan to try something we had never before tried. Our plan involved removing the original “bent-glass,” as it’s called in…

…the industry, and temporarily securing the solarium from the elements. We then took the three insulated units back to our…

…warehouse, whereupon we disassembled the insulated units down to individual panes of glass and took to trying to remove the…

…oxidized consequence of the seal-failure of insulated glass. Frankly, I am not certain what causes the oxidation upon the glass that sometimes happens when moisture is allowed to get in-between the panes. Perhaps a chemical reaction to the aluminum spacer-bars or perhaps a gassing-off that occurs when the desiccant inside the spacer-bars gets wet. We tried everything we could think of or find advertised for oxidation removal.

In the previous photo, our technician Brandon is applying Jewelers ruse with a buffing wheel on the end of a die-grinder, which was the last of about a dozen products that were advertised or recommended by folks we know in the industry as being good for oxidation removal. I can now tell you from experience that nothing even remotely worked.
So a template was made and an order was placed with California Glass Bending.

Thousands of dollars later, we had three brand new insulated glass units to install back into our client’s solarium structure.
No, we did not pass our “research and development” costs onto our client. They were significant to say the least, but in my experience, most valuable educations are.

I like to think that our desire to learn and to grow in our field of expertise is among several characteristics promoted in our company that tend to set us apart from some of, if not most of the competition.

Although there is no way for us to know for certain, we do seem to enjoy an ever increasing amount of favorable feedback from our clients.
If something can be done in the field of door & windows, we likely do it. And then some.
Water leak remediation is but one example of our problem-solving inclinations opening up ever increasing markets for us.

A relatively small residential solarium.

Not only are solariums prone to developing leaks, but a number of them lack proper flashing, as was the primary problem with this assembly.

With a very predictable outcome. This is what we discovered upon removing some of the interior drywall beneath the solarium structure.

Upon removing the insulated, this is what we discovered. Click on the photo for a slightly closer view, if you so like.

We temporarily supported and lifted the assembly to allow us to repair the wall below the structure…

…as well as allowing us to insert a sill-pan under the bottom horizontal portions of the structure.

Sean Miller goes about working on the interior…

…while Steve Hilt puts the finishing touches on the exterior sheathing.

After the moisture-barrier is installed, the siding is re-installed.

And then it was time to replace the drywall.

The Bonny Slope neighborhood in Northwest Portland with a client looking to sell their home.

Time to replace the 5 failed insulated glass units in their sunroom structure.

No leaking associated with this particular project, just foggy glass.

These structures are always a bit of a logistical challenge, although this particular one is near the low end of the difficulty meter.

We’re guessing that this structure was installed prior to the advent of Low-E glass, and thus they used what is called Mirror-Glass. Notice the reflection from the exterior side.

If you enlarge the photo by clicking on it…you should be able to see the difference between the two units we replaced with 366 Low-E Glass, as compared to the remaining mirror glass unit at the bottom of the photo.

Mirror glass apparently does a fine job filtering out the heat generating properties of ultraviolet rays, although it is more expensive and does not reportedly help keep the heat “in” as the Low-E products have been designed to do. To read much more about Low-E glass, you might go to: http://educationcenter.ppg.com/glasstopics/how_lowe_works.aspx

Technicians Bruce and Sean shown in the previous photo preparing to hand down one of the original insulated units to Phil & David (above).

Everybody, including Phil McNair taking the photo, is involved carefully installing the new insulated Low-E glass unit.

So not only did we take care of the foggy-glass problem, but the new glass installed should be considered an upgrade, even though it costs less than the original mirror-glass.

A stately, well-appointed, low-frills home in Lake Oswego.

O.K., the remodeled family room behind the garage, with the vaulted ceiling and the four skylights to offset some of the darkness of living amongst so much foliage might be considered by some to be a bit of a frill.

The two center non-operable skylights are showing obvious water-damage.

If you enlarge the photo above by clicking on it, you may be able to see the light reflecting upon the water that was eking out of the crevasses the day we were there inspecting the damage…

…as it had been raining the night before. These Velux skylights are top notch skylights. No doubt considered by most in the business, including us, as being among the best that money can buy.

So one obvious question might be to ask “what went wrong?” And the answer is that any glass in any window, door, solarium or skylight that is exposed to frequent moisture in climates such as ours, should be re-glazed every five years or so.

There is much that could be said about this, but we won’t go into that here and now. You might note that although it looked as though only the two center skylights had water damage, once we removed the adjoining, interconnecting flashing…

…it was quickly discovered that the two flanking, operable skylights had also sustained some water damage. It just couldn’t be seen until some disassembly had been accomplished.

So two more skylights were ordered as we finished up this first phase. Our client said that they had never opened the two operable skylights, and thus instructed us to order “non-operable” versions for the replacements.

And so it was that we returned at a later date and replaced the other two as well.

On Blue Lake, just East of the Airport.

We were told that we were the third contractor employed to attempt to get this (top) solarium installed and flashed correctly.

Blue Lake, as viewed from the master bedroom.

One of many signs of the water intrusion.

The glass wall extends beyond the master-bedroom into the master bathroom.

One of the challenges we faced, had to do with working over the top of a lower solarium structure. See the last photo showing the scaffold array.

We temporarily removed and stored all the glass. Working in the month of December…

…necessitated the temporary erection of a tarp covered plywood structure to protect the interior of the house.

Besides reglazing all of the glass, we also temporarily lifted the structure to facilitate the installation of a proper “Sill-Pan.”

The scaffold array.

Two leaky, fogged up skylights

Non-Operable, Curb-Mount.

Glazing had failed long ago.

Two new ones received at our warehouse in Tigard. I was not able to make it to the job-site to get some installation shots.

A home-made, wood framed, uniquely shaped non-operable skylight.

Located up behind Lake Oswego High School, if I recall correctly.

Obviously, the glazing system on this Skylight?

?is in desperate need of repair.

The client elected to forgo upgrading the glass from single-pane to insulated, so we just reglazed the original glass.

I was not around to take photos when the custom metal flashing we had made was installed down the middle and around the perimeter.

A STEEL framed solarium is somewhat unique.

Initially, we were called in to figure out why the solarium was leaking.

There was water showing up near the glass where the vertical walls meet the glass roof-line.

And the steel frame was beginning to rust in a few spots.

We determined that it wasn’t rain finding it’s way in, but rather an accumulation of condensation due to

…and the fact that the solarium basically sat just off the kitchen…

…where there was lots of humidity created by all the cooking.

So our client allowed us to upgrade the glass to the latest Low-E, insulated glass.

Which also required redesigning & replacing the glazing and flashing system.

Custom flashing materials once again fabricated for us by Schmeer Sheet Metal.
www.schmeersheetmetal.com

A Mt. Tabor area neighborhood and a client for whom we have now done a number of projects.

Although we offered to repair his leaky skylight, he was convinced it needed replacement.

Fortunately, finding a replacement that would work with the original custom flashing that was made for use with the standing seam steel roofing did not prove to be difficult.

And that was because the original skylight was also a Velux brand skylight.

You might be amazed how many skylight, window and door companies seemingly do not want their names on their products.

What does that tell you? Velux is easily the best known residential brand of skylight, due in large part to their successful marketing and also their quality control department.

But there are many brands that you can run into when you repair skylights such as we do.

Supreme Skylights, Wasco Skylights, Solar Innovations, Sunptics, Domel Inc., Birdview Skylights, Artistic Skylight Domes Ltd., just to name a few.

We do lots of failed glass replacement on Skylights of just about every stripe. We have been known to track down and fix leaks, improperly applied flashing, failed glazing, rotten sash or jamb components, water damaged ceiling and/or structural truse components and drywall repair.

We were, for example, called upon to repair the drywall on this opening that was the result of a leak that was fixed when we replaced the skylight. By the way, replacement was the clients idea. We had suggested reglazing the glass, but the home owner didn’t want to mess with the original skylight.

Another of the ever popular contemporary home designs set up in the N.W. Hills above the Pittock Mansion.

Is it just me, or are there a lot of architects who design bath tub areas to give people the sense they are outdoors?

No, I’m kidding. I know it’s all about the light which these structures allow.

I love the creative things folks can do now with Solariums, Skylights, Solar Tubes and strategically placed windows

This is not the only time Jared’s Rock Climbing and Repelling Skills have come in handy.

There just are those times when neither roof-jacks, ladder-jacks, scaffold, pump-jacks nor a man lift fit the bill.

A generous dose of skill and expertise…

…and the solarium is as good as new, and possibly even better.