Has your beautiful door and view been ruined by ugly fogged or cracked glass? Don’t go to the expense and mess of changing the whole door. In most cases, you can simply change the glass panels quickly and restore your sliding patio doors with pristine glass.
Causes of Sliding Patio Door Glass Failure
Fogging / Condensation
Pretty much all modern sliding door glass is double pane insulating glass. Two pieces of glass are made into a unit with with a primary seal to keep moisture out. It is not uncommon for the seal to fail and the glass to become fogged up. Instead of a beautiful view outside, you end up with an dirty, clouded view. Seal failure leading to cloudy fogged glass is by far the leading failure in sliding patio door glass. For more information on options you have with replacement insulated glass replacement panels, click here.
Dirty, cloudy sliding patio door being prepared for replacement by Jake and Tom!
Gorgeous view through replacement double pane insulated glass.
Broken / Cracked Glass
All modern sliding patio doors are, by code, made with safety glass. In this application safety glass usually means tempered glass. Tempered glass is tougher than regular annealed glass but can still crack and break. This usually occurs when something is thrown or hit. (Hello, golfers!) Bullets and BBs are also not very friendly to sliding patio door glass as well. Flying tree limbs and large hail in significant storms have been known to damage tempered glass. In extremely rare circumstances, tempered glass can spontaneously explode! I would not worry about spontaneous explosions. The number one cause of cracked sliding patio door glass we see is from a lawn mower propelling a rock into to the sliding door.
Scratched Glass
All glass can pick up scratches if a pet is persistent enough. Glass can also be scratched by stubborn people like me who insist on forcing items into too tight areas, all the while assuring you it will definitely fit in. These may be scratches you can accept. When you go to sell your home, the prospective new buyers may not be so forgiving. It is very important that any buyers do not get a lousy impression looking out through a badly scratched patio door.
Glass Unit Structural Failure
Skylight with secondary seal failure. Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
We mentioned up above about primary seals in doors being the leading cause of failures in sliding patio door glass. There is also a secondary seal involved in the fabrication of the glass unit. The purpose of this seal is to hold the two glass panes and the spacers together. This seal can also fail, while less common than primary seal failure, it will also mean that your sliding patio door insulated glass unit must be changed.
The photo to the right shows a leaking skylight in Falmouth, MA. The secondary seal broke down and lost its ability to hold the panes together. The same situation can occur with sliding patio door glass.
Regardless of the cause of failure, Pioneer Glass can return your sliding patio door glass to its pristine view and appearance for significantly less expense and bother. Average installation time of a new door glass pane is one hour.
Serving Massachusetts and Northern Rhode Island.
