Misted double glazing

I have moisture misting up inside one double glazing window pane.

Is there a a DIY fix for this I'm not aware of? Or is it simply a case of having to replace the sealed unit?

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike
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Just replace it - it's less trouble and longer lasting...

Reply to
Tim Watts

There is a DIY fix. I posted here last autumn about drilling two small (3mm) holes into the gap, _from_the_outside_, using a spear-headed tile/glass drill like the smallest of one of these

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cooled by a continuous jet of water from a garden sprayer, and how it allowed the condensation to clear.
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and
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. Scroll up and down as appropriate.

Drill two holes, one each in diagonally opposite corners of the pane. Take it slowly with the drilling, with not too much pressure, especially once the tip of the drill has broken through. Probably best to leave a tapered hole rather than drilling so that the entire bit passes all the way into the gap.

After about a month, we had a very wet and windy day, with rain driving against that particular window, and some condensation re-appeared, but was gone again within 24 hours. Since then, i.e. for the rest of the winter, the window has been clear.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

If you look carefully at the aluminium spacers, they have tiny holes. There is a dessicant in the spacers and it has been used up. So there is no easy fix.

Remove them and take to your local glazier, they will make an exact copy.

The sealant soon fails. Variation in atmospheric pressure puts enormous strain on the units. South facing ones fail first due to the suns additional heating effect. Also the difference beween indoor and outdoor temperatures. Some makes are better sealed than others. Dunno which ones though.

I hear there is new technology coming out which may be a big improvement.

Reply to
harryagain

Its probably only a tiny leak and trying to find it then mop up the moisture is going to be non cost effective. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Or ignoreit. Lower cost.

Reply to
Capitol

Yes I suppose I knew all along there would be no low cost fix! Trouble is it a fancy leaded pane, see

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Those drips on the lead are inside the sealed unit :-)

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

True - I've ignored the 10 odd blown panels I have.

But that's mostly because it's been a bit of a fuss trying to find replacement gasket rubbers...

And I really want to concentrate on getting the building notice signed off.

Reply to
Tim Watts

I remember your posting and just could not see it working. But it did and well done!

Reply to
Mr Pounder

Ta muchly! The secret is drilling from the outside. It hasn't affected the insulating properties either. On very cold nights, we sometimes get a thin line of condensation along the bottom edge of the room-side of the inner pane, but it's exactly the same on the adjacent undrilled pane.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

Ok, those panels will be toughened (both door and below specified height) so don't attempt to drill the glass, it will shatter.

Have a google for clearing misting with a closed loop desiccant system and an aquarium pump circulator.

To gain access to the air in the panel you will need to drill very precisely into the spacer bar between the two glass panels from the side at diagonally opposite corners and insert tubes to connect up to the desiccant system to extract the moisture.

The uber neat job would be to drill into the back of the spacer bar only, leaving the perforated inner surface intact and would be to counterbore the edge drilling to insert and seal a metal tube into the hole for future use.

The method I saw used an aquarium pump to pump air through a good sized lunchbox filled with bags of silica gel in a closed loop through the gel, refreshing it as necessary. The poster claimed a steady reduction in misting over a few days of pumping and a lasting result but if you chose to put in a narrow sealable metal pipe insert then you will be able to repeat the process if needs be in the years to come.

Reply to
fred

In message , fred writes

someone posted here some years back (could easily have been 10+) about something along those lines using a a vaccum cleaner and a bag full of silica gel.

Ah yes, here we are (from 1998)

Reply to
Chris French

In article , Chris French writes

I like the idea of a vac cleaner bag full of desiccant to do a quick job but I can't help thinking that a longer duration drying process, perhaps over a number of day/night temperature cycles would result in a better job and possibly the regeneration of the original desiccant. Possibly heating the window to recharge the desiccant whilst blowing dry air through would work.

The only time I have problems here is on cold days when morning sun appears to warm the window on one end (perhaps releasing moisture internally) and misting occurs in a still cold end that has remained in shadow.

An added bonus of your post was that I found the original closed loop aquarium post with a link to the method that is still active.

Many thanks to Mike Harrison for taking the time to demonstrate the method and for keeping the website images available:

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A nice dinky solution but with the possible negative that a really neat job of side drilling a frame would compromise security for the duration of the work by having to leave the door/window open or removed.

Reply to
fred

A bit late but ... I have just replaced two misted-up units approx 44cm x 94cm. Cost for both including toughening/annealing from a local glass merchant was £62 inc. VAT.

I didn't take the old units out to measure; I followed a website guide which said deduct 10mm from the bead/frame measurement.

Fitting was very easy - just prise out the beads using a chisel-knife + paint scraper, swap glass and bash the beads back with a rubber mallet. Fortunately (!) my measurements were spot on so I could reuse the original spacers.

This is definitely a D-I-Y job, assuming your DG is internally glazed.

Reply to
Reentrant

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