Professional specifications, installation guide & design solutions
Everything we get asked most often, in one place. If your question is not here, call 929-235-1233, message us on WhatsApp or use the quote form and we will answer it directly.
Send us the opening sizes and a photograph, or the drawings if you have them, and tell us where the building is. You can use the quote form, call 929-235-1233 or message us on WhatsApp. For anything beyond a straightforward replacement we will want to survey before pricing, because dimensions taken from a drawing and dimensions taken on site are rarely the same.
All five boroughs of New York City, Northern New Jersey, the Jersey Shore, Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. If your building is outside that and you are not sure, call and ask — we will tell you plainly rather than waste your time.
Yes. We supply glass, windows, doors and hardware to contractors, builders and homeowners without installation. Direct delivery to site is available on orders over $2,500 in value, and collection from our Staten Island shop is available at any order value by appointment.
You can collect from Staten Island, and yes, it is by appointment only. That is deliberate — it means the material is pulled, checked and ready when you arrive, and somebody is free to go through it with you rather than serving a counter.
It depends entirely on what is being ordered. Stock glass can move quickly. Custom fabrication is typically one to two weeks. Custom clad-wood windows for historic district work are built to order and run to several weeks. We give you a build time when we quote, and if a programme is tight we will tell you whether it is achievable rather than agreeing to a date and explaining later.
Regularly. A large share of our work comes through GCs and architects, where we supply and install the glazing scope against drawings someone else has prepared and approvals someone else has secured. Send us the drawings and we will quote against what they actually require.
Casement, double-hung, single-hung, tilt-and-turn, sliding, awning, pivot, fixed, arched and custom shapes, in aluminium, clad-wood, vinyl and fibreglass. We carry European systems including Cortizo and Reynaers, American brands including Pella, Marvin, Andersen and Alside, and commercial systems from YKK and Kawneer.
Acoustic laminated glass, in an asymmetric build — different thicknesses on each lite with an acoustic-grade PVB interlayer. Not triple glazing, which is excellent for heat and frequently no better than good double glazing for noise. And not SGP, which is stiffer than PVB and therefore a poorer damper. If a quotation offers SGP as an acoustic upgrade, ask why.
For heat, usually yes. For noise, often not — a well-specified asymmetric laminated double unit will frequently outperform a standard triple against traffic noise, at lower cost and lower weight. Triple units are also around half again as heavy, which affects hardware, balances and frame depth. We will tell you which problem you are actually solving before recommending one.
Low-iron glass has most of the iron oxide removed from the batch, so it loses the green cast that ordinary clear glass has. The edge goes azure blue instead of bottle green. It is worth paying for on thick glass with exposed edges — shower enclosures, partitions, shelving, display cases — and not worth paying for on ordinary vision glazing in a frame where nobody will see the edge.
It is tempered glass that has been through a destructive screening test to EN 14179-1, which makes panes carrying nickel sulphide inclusions break in the oven rather than years later on the building. It does not make the glass stronger. We specify it for balustrades, overhead glazing, canopies and anywhere replacement would need access equipment.
Yes. Custom fabrication is one of our core services — arched heads, circles, trapezoids, notched and drilled panels, and glass cut to your dimensions. Typical turnaround is one to two weeks depending on the processing required.
Tempered, laminated, insulating double and triple units, low-e and solar control coatings, acoustic laminates, tinted and low-iron substrates, fire-rated, frosted and acid-etched, mirrored, printed and fritted. Tell us what the glass has to do and we will specify it.
Yes, and it is worth being precise about the roles. The Landmarks Preservation Commission approves windows and installations, not vendors — there is no such thing as a landmark-approved contractor. We are the supplier and installer, working to the approvals your architect or general contractor secures. We survey the existing sash, match bar widths and profiles, and build to what the approval requires.
We can manage the permit and approval process for glazing work, including coordination with Landmarks where the building sits in a designated district. Note that Landmarks approval comes before DOB filing — the Department of Buildings will not accept a filing for work in a historic district without the landmarks permit in hand.
No. Architecture and engineering require licensure in New York and we do not hold it. What we provide is a glazing-scope survey, shop drawings for what we are fabricating, and a buildability review of someone else's design. Where a job needs stamped drawings you will need a registered architect or professional engineer, and we will say so.
Under NYC Administrative Code §27-2043.1, owners of multiple dwellings must install approved window guards in any unit where a child ten years of age or under resides, and on written request from any tenant. Approved guards have bars no more than 4.5 inches apart and must withstand 150 pounds. Windows giving access to a fire escape are excepted.
It depends on the window type, and this catches people out. NYC calculates ventilation on the area that actually opens, not the size of the window. A sliding window opens to about half its width, which can put a room below the threshold even though the opening looks the same size. We check openable area against room floor area at survey rather than after the units arrive.
Yes. We carry insurance appropriate to the work and can provide certificates for building management, co-op boards and general contractors before we start on site. Ask and we will send them.
Yes — it is one of our core services and we describe ourselves as full opening specialists, meaning we take responsibility for the whole opening rather than just the unit in it. We work with Henry, Soprema, Dow Corning and Seimeda materials, selected according to the exposure rather than defaulting to one system.
Usually because the joint was never sized for the movement it has to absorb. Dark aluminium in summer sun runs well above air temperature and drops below it on a clear winter night, so the material moves across a far wider range than the thermometer suggests. A joint too narrow for that movement will fail regardless of how good the sealant is. Coastal salt and freeze-thaw cycling accelerate it.
Often, yes, and we would rather tell you that than take the larger order. A building may need a hundred new locks and only forty windows genuinely rebuilt. Working out which is which is what the survey is for, and it usually saves considerably more than the survey costs.
We handle curtain wall, storefront, entrance systems, railings and partitions, and whole-building replacement programmes. On larger jobs the survey identifies window patterns rather than just counting openings, because older buildings rarely have one window type throughout and a single hardware pattern will not fit all of them.
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