Self-cleaning glass ?

I read several years ago that Pilkingtons had developed a new kind of glass, with some kind of activated surface which kept the glass clean. IIRC, the glass was intended for use in very tall buildings where it is impractical to clean from the outside.

I wonder if anything came of this?

Reply to
Timothy Murphy
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Reply to
Ziggur

I knew a window cleaner that saw a factory done in this, said every time he went past it it was filthy. IIUC it speeds up oxidisation of bird shit, so it has some clean-enhancingness, but is by no means fully self cleaning.

Reply to
N. Thornton

It claims Ireland has been chosen as a testing ground for this glass. Unfortunately it doesn't say anything about the cost or where it can be obtained, but I have written to them to ask.

I live in a 4-storey building (an old orphanage) and it is more or less impossible to get at the higher windows from outside - the only way to clean them is by taking them out internally.

Reply to
Timothy Murphy

Mind you, he would, wouldn't he :-)

Reply to
Jethro

As long ago as the early 1960s while in Germany all the windows in the modern flats opened inwards, so cleaning was a doddle, surely that type of window is available here?

Reply to
Broadback

But bird shit isn't the only muck on a window. Not on ours anyway.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

... and in the RAF barracks I lived in from 1958-9 at Scharfoldendorf (south of Hanover). These were triple glazed.

We had them in a building I worked in, in Milton Keynes and built in ~

1988-90.
Reply to
Malcolm Stewart

Almost any glazing company could supply it.

The inventor was a company called Rytek. They produce a "Non-stick" liquid coating which is used by several window companies in the production of their glazed units. Rytek "Clearshield" was featured in a BBC programme called "Tomorrow's World" when it won the Prince of Wales' Award for Innovation several years ago.

I know that at least one major UK replacement window company supplies windows with this product "as standard" on all of its windows. A large and well respected firm in Belfast sells windows made by this UK fabricator.

Reply to
Ziggur

Yep. Very common. Readily available. Known as "Tilt & Turn".

Reply to
Ziggur

Mine are sash windows in a listed building. I'd have to get planning permission to change them.

Reply to
Timothy Murphy

kind of. I knew him for real, not for business. I expect bias but not bs. I did tease him about it occasionally :) but he seemed quite convinced it was junk.

NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

I thought they announced this only last year. As it happens I picked up a couple of sheets of glass in my local glass merchants on Saturday and noticed that they had a poster advertising this glass, so I guess the answer is that our local glass merchants will have it or can order it.

I'm still waiting for the ultra thin sheets of glass that were heralded 10 or more years ago to finally materialise as a flexible scratchproof surface for motorcycle visors, grrr!

Reply to
Jan Wysocki

[...]

I know of someone here in Ireland that has had them fitted by the Senator company.

I must enquire as to the effectiveness of the self-cleaning. Maybe worth an experiment; now how could one simulate bird-droppings?

Best regards,

Jon C.

Reply to
Jonathan G Campbell

"Timothy Murphy" wrote | Mine are sash windows in a listed building. | I'd have to get planning permission to change them.

Wood box and sash windows are traditional in Scottish tenements (up to 10 storeys in parts of Edinburgh) and are cleanable from the inside. The top sash is cleaned by lowering it and reaching over the top of the sash from inside. The bottom sash is cleaned by removing one of the side beadings (on my windows they are hinged to allow this) and swinging the bottom sash in about halfway. There are brass slotted hinges on the box to hang the sash on.

Do you have the whole of a four-storey former orphanage, or just a flat? Either way, might be worth considering a window cleaning contractor every quarter with a cherry picker to do the whole building.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

In my youth I was always a little perturbed to see women hanging out of sash windows, sitting on the window ledge, and thus being able to clean the outsides of the glass.

Chris

Reply to
Chris J Dixon

I was fascinated to see my mother and neighbours doing this and it was a rite de passage when I was allowed to do it - I was grown up!

Only the other day I was yearning for it - you simply don't have the safety feature of the drawn-down window with casements :-(

That's why God is left to clean our windows ...

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

snipped

I have my windows cleaned about once /month to 6 weeks. A friend living about a mile away and in a similar position (i.e. we're both in side roads away from the high dust levels of main roads etc.) does not have her windows cleaned. The downstairs windows are as clean as mine; the upper part of the upstairs windows, protected to a degree from rain by the overhang of the roof and guttering are quite dirty.

Reply to
Malcolm Stewart

try a fishtank cleaner - and attach the outside half to a atring so it cant drop. Then with a bent coathanger you can move it from pane to pane.

A fishtank cleaner is just 2 magnets, with cloth over each. Move the interior one, the exterior one follows.

Another maybe would be a water and detergent jet from the ground.

NT

Reply to
N. Thornton

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