by Denise Maria
(Holmes Beach, Florida)
I recently acquired a very old house in Florida. 2 pair of sliders need a lot of work. I have an acquaintance who is a handy-man, and he assessed them and ordered new gliders for them.
However, once he realized that these doors are so old and are made of non-tempered glass, he declined to work on them due to liability. I realize you are in a different country, but any suggestions?
Thank you very much.
I could be wrong but I don't know of any regulations that say you can't work on non tempered glass. Just regulations saying if you replace the whole door, the new one has to be tempered.
But I do know that there is risk working on old doors because its possible they can break during repair. The worse thing that might happen is the glass cracking as you are struggling to get the bottom rail off.
Maybe the guy just didn't want to be on the hook for breaking the glass.
If you are used to working on patio doors replacing broken glass is not that big an issue, just more of an inconvenience because you have to wait for the insulated glass to be cut
I have worked on hundreds of patio doors and yes a couple of non tempered ones have cracked when I took the frame apart.
So I replaced the glass with new tempered sealed units. No big deal
Try calling a different glass shop, preferably one with membership in National Glass Association and good reviews on Yelp.com or Houzz.com