Questions: Trapped water, changing rubber…

Hi Steve,

I am starting to get ready for the season and have a few questions…

1.  I have come across an Anderson window (approx 10” wide by 36” tall) that has external horizontal dividers on the inside and out with the glass sandwiched in-between. In other words, it is one piece of glass but it is made to appear that there are three vertical panes. The problem is that after I clean the glass, water seeps from the top section down under the molding onto the next section below (i.e. water runs onto glass that I just cleaned). Do you have any suggestions to prevent this?

2. Can you give me a basic idea of when to change rubber in a squeegee? Let’s assume I am working every week day, using that squeegee. I would rather not wait until streaks begin to develop and then have to change them out on the job.

Thanks,

John

My Response:

Hi John,

Good morning.  I hope all is well.

–Right…these anderson windows and some other windows that have similar designs end up trapping the water in the dividers, and then it slowly but surely drips down the glass. I’ve found the best way to handle this is to do one of two things:

1) Squeegee from left to right or right to left vs top to bottom.  This will eliminate you “pushing” the water into the divider when the squeegee is coming down.  And also make sure to squeegee only one pane at a time.  If you do this, then you should be able to catch any water dripping down the sides from getting into the divider.  You have to move fast though.

2) The 2nd method is to use a spray bottle. If you haven’t already, I would recommend mixing some glisten and water in a regular spray bottle because it’ll come in handy. I used a spray bottle all the time when doing french doors.  And then I would dry immediately with a towel after I sprayed each pane. So you spray a pane, wipe the pane, etc.  Spraying isn’t an ideal solution though if you know that the Sun will beat down on the glass.  Sun can be very unforgiving as you know when it comes to showing streaks.  So if you feel this’ll be an issue, use option 1 and you should be good to go.

–As far as changing the rubber, I generally went 3 to 4 months before changing rubber. So if you’re working every day with the same squeegee, I think every 3 months would be good to do a rubber change.  Keep a close eye on it though.  Sometimes if the scraping isn’t done perfectly, the rubber might catch some debris on the window as your squeegeeing and put a little nick in the rubber.  Once this is done, it needs to be replaced right away.

Hope this helps. Take care for now and have a great day.

Regards,

Steve