Dunno, Chris, might not get it all out, but I'd think it would get a lot, if you got temp to a high enough but still safe level, kept it there long enough, and did it on a hot, dry day so ambient vapor pressure was low. Might need to open crack a little to help it along. No doubt replacing window is best option, if landlady will spring for it.
WRONG.... I was a landlord for many years. A common residential rental lease does not allow tenants to do work on their rental without permission from the landlord. You (the tenant) could actually be evicted or even sued by the landlord for doing it without their consent, even if you paid for the work. Or, more likely the landlord will say thank you for doing the repair and you wont get a cent.
When I leased, I used the standard lease, but I wrote that tenants could do minor repairs if they chose, but NOT if the cost of the part was more than $25. I even told them that I would reimburse the cost of the part if they gave me the receipt along with their rent payment. That was usually to my advantage because it eliminated all those aggravating calls for minor things such as a loose door hinge, dripping faucet washer, bad toilet flapper, etc. If the repair was major and/or costly, they had to contact me first.
So, I got these tenants that decided that the were going to do whatever they wanted. The said the hot water was not hot as it used to be. They claimed they called me and got my answering machine. That's possible, but they never left a message. Instead they replaced the electric water heater without notifying me. Not only did they replace it, but they bought the most expensive 50 gallon tank they could get to replace the 30 gallon tank that I had just installed about 2 years ago.
If this 2 year old heater needed anything, it may have needed a new element, which is entirely possible. I would have happily gone there and replaced the element at a cost of $20 for parts. Instead, they bought a $400 water heater. In the process they ripped out half the copper piping in the basement and replaced it with pvc pipe, because they claimed they could not solder the old pipe. The total for materials was almost $600, and they wanted an additional $500 for their labor. I should mention that their monthly rent was $450. So they said they would just not pay any rent for the next two and a half months.
I told them that if they did not pay their rent, I'd be happy to send them an eviction notice, but I told them they could deduct the amount of $20 which is what an element costs, and gave them the name of the store where I priced it. They claimed that there was something else wrong with the heater. That's when I stuck their lease in their face and made them read the part about tenants not being allowed to do their own repairs if the cost of parts exceeds $25. They were angry about it, but they paid their rent minus the $20, after I told them that I can not test the old heater since they disconnected it. That I did not want a 50 gallon tank, and that I really dislike pvc pipe, and if they wanted to push the issue, I'd sue them for wrecking my copper pipe without permission.
Just for the heck of it, I took the old water heater to my shop. I filled it with a garden hose and wired it to my breaker box. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Apparently they just wanted a bigger water heater and thought they'd get away with this. Their expensive water heater stayed in that house when I sold the place. The so called "defective" heater was reused in another house, and is still working today.
Mark
According to Sev :
Making the assumption that there's an crack in the thermopane unit, in order to force 50% of the water out, you have to heat up the air enough to have the air volume double in size. That's pretty darn hot. If I remember my physical chemistry, with ideal gasses [1], we're talking about roughly doubling the temperature - relative to absolute zero. eg: in the neighborhood of 300C or 500F.
You're likely to fracture the glass or set the caulking and/or wood framing on fire. I'm sure that the seals wouldn't take that either.
Now if there isn't a crack (eg: moisture was by slow diffusion through imperfect seals), the thermopane is likely to rupture (explode) long before you get the air inside the thermopane to that temperature.
[At 300C/500F, a thermopane that was mostly sealed, but at STP, would have an outward force of roughly 15 pounds per square inch. On a 2'x3' window, that works out to be over 6 _tons_ on the glass. Like parking two hummers on it.]Heating to displace moisture works well, but only when you have air circulation. A thermopane unit doesn't. By definition.
If you had _two_ holes, and blew warm, dry (however you got it dried) air through, that'd be different.
Indeed.
[1] For all intents and purposes, air at STP is close enough to an ideal gas that "rough" approximations work. If you want it to 6 figures, I'd have to crack out the books ;-)
We might drill 2 holes in the spacers between the panes and feed air through a tube into one hole while warming one pane with a hair dryer.
If the condensation has actually etched the panes, we might separate and polish them with a Continental greenhouse glass cleaning solution containing fluorine.
Nick
All of this makes sense if we're assuming the moisture is the condensate of moisture saturated air. I guess I'm assuming the opposite, that rain has been entering through a leak. Seems to me this would alter the calculations. In time, faster with heat, it should diffuse to equalise with ambient conditions. This could take time, depending on size of opening, or using two holes as you said.
According to Sev :
Actually, I'm not assuming that. The assumption is that the seal has become somewhat defective, and the original dry air (or argon) inside the unit has become replaced with moist air.
Once moisture is inside the thermopane, it don't make no difference how it got there, nor whether it entered as a liquid, vapor or solid. It's air and vapor/liquid/solid water that equilibriates at a certain point given the amount of water and the temperature.
Assuming that the crack that let the moisture in is anything short of a honking big hole, simply evaporating the water and waiting for it to diffuse out will take a very long time. There's essentially no external circulation because the hole is too small. The only air going through the crack is that pushed out by thermal expansion of the air inside the thermopane.
Infinitely long if the ambient air outside is anywhere near as humid.
It may have taken years for the thermopane to fog up with daily temperature cycling and the existing crack. How many years do you expect to be heatgunning it? ;-)
The humidity inside the thermopane may well be lower than summer ambient conditions, but in winter, it's high enough to condense (or even freeze) out. In other words, trying a simple heat trick during a humid summer day may make the problem _worse_ (as the window cools off, it sucks in air with more moisture than is already inside the thermopane).
In order for this to even remotely work, you have to forcibly replace the air inside the thermopane (positive circulation, eg: two holes) with what probably has to be artificially dried air. An air compressor with a drier would probably work (but heaven help you if you forget/plug the exit hole!).
Or introduce something inside the thermopane that captures the water (eg: silica gel).
Then seal up the holes.
I meant that it might not, in fact, be at equilibrium, but well above that due to rain getting in.
I did consider this- why I suggested opening crack/ hole and doing it in hot dry day. But come to think of it, cold dry day would be better- less moisture in air at same rh.
This would be a good last step. Maybe open up a diaper if you need a plentiful source :) If he removed window from frame, he could try dripping water out, then inject and drain out alcohol.
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