Our 19 year old home has about 25 double hung wooden sash insulated glass "tilt to clean" windows in it.
They all have "fake" stained and varnished wooden grilles up against the inside surface of the glass.
The grilles are made up of one horizontal and two vertical strips of molding to simulate the look of a "six over six" windows. The strips are notched where they cross, making them pretty weak there.
The grilles are fastened onto the window sashes by clear plastic clips on each end of the horizontal strip. The clips are shaped a bit like cartridge fuse clips, with a peg molded onto them which presses into a hole drilled into the side of the casing, next to the glass. The tops and bottoms of the vertical strips just butt against the sash with no support there. You just push the end of the strip toward the glass to snap it into the clip.
The grilles look fine, but the problem is that the succession of cleaning ladies we've used over the years forget they are not "real" six panel windows, spray glass cleaner on them and then proceed to vigorously wipe off each "panel", whacking into the vertical strips as they do so. Given the leverage there, it doesn't take much of a sideways push to snap the wood where it's notched.
About once other month I notice a window with one of those vertical strips a bit skewed, and find that it was busted off where it crosses the horizontal strip, and then carefully stood back in place without mention.
When I find one like that I cuss and take the grille down to the basement to drill blind holes into the the broken ends and splint it back together with a piece of a 6d finishing nail epoxied into the holes. I must have done that unexciting job 30 times already.
I can't blame the cleaning ladies, those grilles are a crappy design from the standpoint of accepting "normal" cleaning, and they're a bit tricky to spring out of the clips holding them, so I wouldn't ask the cleaners to remove and replace them every time they clean a window.
I'm trying to find a source for those clear plastic clips so that I can buy a bunch of them and add them at the top and bottom of each sash to hold the free ends of those vertical grille strips. That should solve the problem. The majority of the windows are the same size, so I could make up a simple jig to let me drill the holes for the additional clips faster than you can say Jill Robinson.
Since the grilles are painted white on the sides which face out, I've thought of using short lengths of double sided foam tape near those free ends to stick them to the glass, but I'd rather do it with clips if I can find them.
I can't seem to locate any manufacturer's label on the windows, so I don't know where to start looking.
Help please?
Jeff