Diamond Glass

Diamond Glass handles auto glass, windshields, shower doors, mirrors and residential glazing in St. George. Of all of those, the failure homeowners here ask about most often is the one that looks like dirt trapped between two panes and cannot be cleaned off.

The wider picture

A modern window is an insulated glass unit: two panes separated by a spacer around the perimeter, sealed at the edges, with the cavity between them filled with dry air or an inert gas such as argon and a desiccant packed inside the spacer to absorb any residual moisture. The seal is the whole design. As long as it holds, the cavity stays dry and the unit insulates.

Southern Utah works that seal harder than most climates does. Glass expands when heated and contracts when cooled, and the daily temperature swing here is large - a west-facing pane can move through a great many degrees between afternoon and dawn. The gas inside expands and contracts with it, so the unit breathes against its seal thousands of times a year, and altitude adds a further pressure differential for units manufactured nearer sea level. Eventually the seal fails, humid air enters, the desiccant saturates, and moisture condenses on the interior surfaces where nothing can reach it. The haze and mineral deposits that follow are permanent. The repair is to replace the sealed unit itself, not the whole window: the frame, sash and hardware stay, and a new insulated unit is fitted into them, which is a considerably smaller job than a window replacement.

Related on the site: window covering companies and the desert home inspection guide. Browse all Glass & Windows in the directory.

Nearby: Safelite AutoGlass, NOVUS Glass of St. George, Cedar Lawn Care.