Irish builders!

[Chris Bacon]

If they look OK, don't bother. It'll probably wreck the window and the frame if they're removed.

[Owain]

Ah don't worry about it, those instructions will be for the English sunlight so they will, the Irish sunlight's a different wavelength because it comes straight off the Atlantic so it does, begorra.

Owain

[Doctor Drivel]

"either interior pane". Does this mean the inner pane on double glazed or either of the two inner panes on triple glazing? In short, not the outer pane on any glazing unit that is more than single glazed. Even then on single glazed it should face inwards?

[freddyuk]

I just had some glazing units fitted in Ireland and the sticker on th

outside of units from Pilkington says this side should face th interior room.(K glass)

After enquiry from Pilkington i got a standard printed info sheet whic seemed to say the reflective coating can be on either interior pane o glass (inside the sealed unit) either facing out or facing in i doesn't really matter except if it is on the inward facing pane it ma cause a slight optical distortion. Any idea if i need to get these changed round as the sticked says the are wrong?

It will cause some damage to change them as they are siliconed int timber frames.

Thanks

-- freddyuk

[Phil]

Remove the sticker and replace on the inside.

[Adrian C]

There was a thread not so long ago - someone was wondering if his double glazed unit was filled with argon gas as claimed by his supplier. Did he find a way of confirming that?

[Mary Fisher]

I never thought of Owain as an Irish name ...

>

[Phil]

Working out the refractive index by measuring the angle of refraction might work, this would give you an indication of the density of the gas in the gap....probably a mix of air/argon after a short while.

[Weatherlawyer]

Is there a J in the Irish language? There isn't one in the Welsh.

[Mary Fisher]

Yes, the angle of dangle is very important for the bench mark.

Mary

>

[Owain]

There wasn't, but then they found it was needed for words like sosej.

Owain

[Andy Hall]

On Tue, 6 Jun 2006 18:47:24 +0100, Weatherlawyer wrote (in article ):

Follow the logic of that, bach....

[Chris Bacon]

freddyuk wrote: > [ snip ]

You are men?

[manatbandq]

What does that mean? Surely you have one interior and one exterior pane. Do you mean either face of the interior pane? or one of the faces that is in the gap between the two panes?

MBQ

[Chris Bacon]

What? Does *no-one* remember? Flippin 'eck.

[Andy Hall]

On Tue, 6 Jun 2006 20:17:48 +0100, Owain wrote (in article ):

I thought it was called something like 'selsig' in the end....

I believe that 'Z' is missing as well which is why someone from the north generally pronounces words like 'zero' as 'sero'

or so i was told....

[Owain]

Yebbut most people say sosej.

And there's jam, of course.

I thought it was dim but never mind.

Owain

[unopened]

Yes - the answer, such that it was, was via spectroscopy, so (a) it is possible, and (b) not easy to d-i-y. The consensus of opinion among posters was that argon-fill wasn't worth doing anyway.

At a trivial level, there will be argon in the unit, as it will almost certainly leak/exhange air with the outside world, and normal air is

0.934% by volume of argon. Determining if the % of argon is higher is slightly more difficult. You would be looking for an emission or absorption spectrum. I think that's probably the easiest method.

For emission, assuming it is at or around atmospheric pressure and you can't insert electrodes into the gas-gap in the glazing, you'd need some stonking RF generators to get a glow discharge, then measure the spectrum coming off compared to a similar discharge using air. If the intensity of the argon emission lines is greater, then there's more argon there. (I'm missing out some essential details, but the principle is sound).

Absorption spectra are a bit easier - you just need a light source with a known spectrum and measure the differences going through the double glazing unit being tested and one filled with air. If the argon absorption lines are stronger on the unit, it has a higher proportion of argon. (Again, I'm missing out essential implementation details).

Another method would be to measure the speed of sound in the gas-fill: for argon under a particular set of conditions it is 323 metres/second, whereas for air under the same conditions it is about 348 metres/second.

Or, cool the double glazing to liquefy the gas. Argon boils at about

-186 degC, and solidifies at about -189 degC. Air (a mixture mostly of nitrogen and oxygen) liquefies at about -190 to -193 degC, so (neglecting pressure related effects), an accurate temperature reading of the boiling point of the gas in the double glazing unit could tell you. The mechanics of doing this to a double glazing unit are left to the reader. Whether it could take such low temperatures is moot as well.

You could probably also test using neutron activation analysis, but this probably couldn't be done in situ. As the normal sample size is about 1/20 of a gram, fitting an entire double glazing unit into a nuclear reactor may not be possible.

If allowed to take a sample of the gas-fill, rather than just restricting to in-situ tests, there are other things that could be done as well. It's actually an interesting question for physics/chemistry students.

Cheers,

Sid

[unopened]

My understanding is that you do not need to get them re-fitted. One inner surface of the panes has been coated in a low-IR-emissivity material. What this means is that it is very poor at emitting infra-red radiation, and conversely very good at reflecting infra-red radiation. The infra-red radiation is one of the means by which heat is transferred from one place to another - in this case from your nice and snug room into the cold outdoors.

If it is on the outer pane, facing in, then it will be doing a very good job of reflecting infra-red radiation back into the room.

If it is on the inner pane, facing out, then it will be doing a good job of not emitting the infra-red radiation towards the outside in the first place. There may be a slight reduction in effectiveness as the inner pane is warmer than the outer.

Hope that helps.

Sid

[freddyuk]

Thanks Sid for that info. I did some research and it appears you ar right so i have one less problem to solve. Still it could have been an expensive c*ck up

-- freddyuk