What does a typical window glass fix consist of?

Glass damage to your windows can occur in a variety of ways. The two most common types of damage being 1.) broken glass and 2.) foggy glass.

If you've encountered a broken window in your house before, there are high chances that only one pane of glass broke.

"Only one pane of glass broke, why do you need to replace the entire insulated unit?"

This is by far the most common question we come across when assessing broken glass on a window.

Most modern houses come equipped with insulated glass units on all windows. Per building codes, some will be tempered (safety glass) and some will be annealed-regular glass- like the one shown on the image above. Lets take a look at the anatomy of an insulated glass unit so we can better understand why the entire unit gets replaced opposed to "just the side that broke"...

Pay close attention to the image on the right: notice that your Insulated unit consists of two panes of glass "sandwiched" between an aluminum spacer. The air inside your insulated unit is sealed with a butyl compound. Butyl compound is an adhesive material that never fully cures. The process of creating an insulated unit requires "clean room" environment conditions so no dirt particles end up inside during production.

Instead of going through the hassle of compromising your new unit, and in order to provide the best quality control of your new insulated unit, your local glass repair provider will order a new unit through one of their local glass manufacturers. This is the only practical solution to both foggy and broken glass panes on insulated units. Your local glass repair provider is not trying to upsell you on extra glass that you don't need. They are simply going with the process that makes more sense. Could only one pane be replaced? It could, but it would not make sense for you as a customer (compromised quality of end product) nor would it make sense for your provider-extremely difficult process resulting in high costs for a unit that will not be perfect.

Newly installed insulated unit.