[Rogga]

Hi fellow windies.
A bit of an awkward situation. A good customer of mine informed me by email that my employee had cracked a georgian window on his period house. He said he was upstairs when he heared a noise  and went to the room  the noise came from to see my employees brush close to the cracked pane. My employee at that time was carrying on window cleaning. The owner said there had been no cracked pane prior to us turning up. I questioned my employee at the end of his shift. He was unaware of any cracked pane and had cleaned the window in a normal manner as he had done many times before. The crack looks like a spiders web in appearance. I believe him as i really quizzed him. He is a very honest decent lad but the owner insists that it was us that did the damage. Ive been recently told that its a bit of a speciality job with the top section of the frame needing replacing. The cost from a reputable window firm is £335. Ouch! Have we been very unlucky. Could the georgian pane have been chipped or weakened and any light pressure on the glass would have created the crack. Ive been window cleaning for many years and ive seen many things but this is very new to me. Any thoughts will be very much welcome. Thanks

[Bin Juice]

A piece of glass and a tub of putty £10 . touch up with paint , cant see where you get £334 from

[Ched]

Get a second quote as that sounds very very expensive. If it's period glass then it will weaken at the top first as glass is technically a liquid and will over decades thin at top.

[NWH]

Looks like the whole top sections gone to me.

[NWH]

These days they aren’t individually glazed,just 1 big piece of glass with the bars put over the top of the glass

[alank]

That looks like toughened glass to me.

[alank]

If that's fitted into a ground floor window frame and the glass is modern it would have been manufactured and tested in accordance to be 6206 for architectural glazing a would be almost impossible to break using a wfp .

[Bin Juice]

oh i see its completly shattered

[Rogga]

Ive been a bit neglectful on this. I need to go and investigate. Get the ladders off.  Take my own photos. Also ring the window company responsible for the quote and ask fora breakdown of the work. I cant help feeling that this could have happened at anytime with potential fault with the glass and we came along and sped up the process. If we had been  fully responsible then the plastic would have been straight out and the proper end to it finalised. Still would have questioned why the quote is high though. Cheers for your input folks. 

[NWH]

If that's fitted into a ground floor window frame and the glass is modern it would have been manufactured and tested in accordance to be 6206 for architectural glazing a would be almost impossible to break using a wfp .

Not with hot water it’s not.

[tom20001]

Did he raise it with your employee immediately after it allegedly happened?  Id imagine that would be most people's initial instinctive reaction bit  fishy if he didn't imho

[Smudger]

to me it looks like an impact, stone, air rifle pellet - possibly the corner of a brush, but you'd have to hit it damn hard

as said - as he was there why did he not question the employee there and then ?

how long after the "incident" did he finally contact you?

I would say not all as it seems...

Darran

[Splash & dash]

I know it’s high up but the damage  looks like a stone from someone using a  strimmer  to me , I would expect to see a scratch not a shattered pain of glass 

[NWH]

Yeah it looks like a lawn mower or strimmer but I’ve known panes of glass to just have this happen out of the blue,a glazier I spoke to said if you keep cleaning with very hot water although you can’t see it if there are very small discrepancies in the glass over time it can weaken it,I had one on a very cold morning she said to me it just went pop out of the blue it won’t stop me cleaning with hot water though 🤣.

[Rogga]

Thanks. Youve raised an interesting question that i hadnt thought of. Why didnt he take it up with my employee at the time. Im not saying he is being underhand but it would be the natural thing to do. I will arrange a meet up with the owner and take my employee when i go inspect the damage. From the look of the crack its shape is that of an impact crack rather than a stress or pressure crack and that puts us in the dock. I think a face to face with all parties is needed before i submit to coughing up. Cheers again

[Ralphie]

If this is toughened glass as it looks in the picture then It would take a lot of force to break it.  Its toughened and then stronger as its smaller so would take a lot of force to break and then it would shatter if he kept cleaning if he had not noticed.

One of two ways:

Employee has banged the window with the edge of his brush when starting and broke it and feels a dick about owning up.
                                                                                                                              Or
Windows cleaned and then broken by a third party but owner assumes it was your guy as nobody else been near his windows that he knows of?

The repair cost would be to visit and temporary glaze whilst toughened is being made but would not expect it to cost more than £150 tops (Im an ex glazer).

Your issue is do you want to lose hi m and not how it got broken.

[simon w]

Was the top sash open when your cleaner arrived? Did he use a pole to push the window up closed?

[Mike Halliday]

So what options do you have?

Pay up and keep the customer, not pay and lose them.

I would pay them and explain this incident has been a very positive learning curve, it’s helped you realise your liability insurance is woefully inadequate for how you work has  evolved over the last few years, to protect your self from future incidents you have upgraded your insurance,  which will mean a slight increase in your prices …. Then increase his price by £7  a clean

[NWH]

It doesn’t matter how toughened it is if it has microscopic flaws in the glass it will crack with hot water,the chances of you or your employee cracking it with cold are slim to non it’s always easy to blame the bloke that spends more time with the glass ie the window cleaner.

[tom20001]

Slightly off topic and tongue in cheek but i sometimes wonder should we wear a body cam, would eliminate a lot of the try ons