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solution for a too-small pane of insulated glass
Tuesday, July 18 2023
Working in the world I work in, where companies come and go like mushrooms, I never take a job I happen to have for granted. My time at Mercy For Animals lasted nearly 26 months, which was a record in my career. But this job I just had, which really can't be said to have been at one company (since the company I was hired at was immediately absorbed by a private equity firm that later got a new name and gave itself such a thorough rebranding that I was mailed a teeshirt and water bottle with the new brand) employed me for six weeks shy of five years. That's a substantial fraction of my career. Soon after I was hired, I started hating the job, which required me to drive to Red Hook every weekday and "do something" all day. Some days I couldn't even figure out what exactly to "do," so I figured out ways to look busy while I read news sites. (Pro tip: nobody knows it's a news site if you copy the text and read it in a text editor.) I'd never really had a job where I found myself watching the clock, but I definitely did a lot of that in Red Hook. Then the pandemic arrived, and I worked from home. That was great; nobody feels a need to watch a clock when working from home (unless you are subject to truly Orwellian surveillance software). But even then I hated my job, since I no longer developed code but instead poured over documents and old code so I would know what to say to my boss and a team of Ukrainian developers. Things definitely improved after that doomed project failed and I was re-assigned to work with a small group of web developers based in Marblehead (and then Salem) Massachusetts. I was back to writing code, and I had a few great early successes with an Azure DevOps build pipeline and then an Amazon AppStream integration. Still, though, I kept finding myself assigned shitty projects that others in the team wanted to avoid, and this often led me to question my skills (even though I've been working in this field since 1996). Still, every day I got through without being fired was a notch in the ratchet of success. I had stupid little expressions I would say to myself, such as "I made it to a Thursday in late June, 2023." And I kept a tally on how many days I'd lasted on the job, complete with what date I'd be on if I'd managed to keep my job at Mercy For Animals that long. All of that ended yesterday, and I can no longer tell my self, "I made it out to [insert surprising date here]." Now I have to look for another stupid job and start the whole process again. I'd been somewhat reassured that my job was safer than most tech jobs because I was working in a musty industry designing software for local governments. But I was failing to take into account that our private equity overlords are cut-throats who will do anything to pump up prices for the next sale. Just because they'd never had a round of layoffs before didn't mean I wouldn't be on the chopping block when they finally had one. And, as my erstwhile boss Alex (who rage-quit back in January of 2022) put it, with their leverage-based business model, they're probably desperate to stop the hemorrhaging now that interest rates have doubled.
Normally I do landlording chores on weekday evenings, because I'm often at the cabin or traveling on weekends and I had been "working" during business hours. But as of yesterday, I have no job. So early this afternoon, I loaded the 24 foot ladder onto the roof of the Forester and then drove out to the Brewester Street rental, where I had three issues to deal with. Two of them I dealt with very quickly. I determined that a spot of bad paint high on the outside north wall was not due to an issue with the gutter, so there was no need to deploy the ladder. And a leak through the outside wall down in the basement seemed likely to be a temporary issue related to an unusual torrential downpour. The last issue was to replace a pane of insulated glass on the back porch. I found the front door unlocked, so, after knocking and announcing my arrival, I walked through the house to the back. There I found one of the residents, a tall young woman, working on the beautiful garden she and her housemates had started in the back. She was wearing earbuds, so I called out to her loudly so she wouldn't be surprised to see a stranger in her house. (In Texas and Florida, among other places where a zygote is worth several adult women, landlords have to be especially careful to avoid getting shot.) She asked if I was fixing the window, and I said I was, if possible.
The window was a vinyl unit, and I'd never seen any way to take one apart. But a quick Google search led me to a YouTube video where I learned that in vinyl windows there are little shims that go into grooves in the sash, and these are easily removed with a putty knife. Fortunately, I'd thought ahead enough to grab both a chisel and a drywall knife, and this allowed me to easily extract the old broken pane of insulated glass. I then measured it and was surprised to learn that it was significantly larger in all dimensions than the pane I'd spent $400 having custom made. The one I'd had made (and which I'd brought with me for the replacement) was a half inch thick and 24 by 52 inches. The one I'd be replacing was 0.75 inches thick and 24.625 by 52.375 inches. I suppose it was good that it was smaller as opposed to bigger, but that amount of difference was a little hard to manage. At first I thought I could use some cork pads with adhesive on them (which had come with the new pane) to help center it in the too-big space. But this didn't work very well, especially when I tried to re-install the shims. Without something pushing on the shims from the inside (something the pane of glass was too thin to do), they immediately fell out, which left the pane unsupported from the outside.
So I went to Herzog's and bought some adhesive, a cheap caulking gun (since I didn't have one with me) and some low-expansion spray foam. It was the spray foam that ended up making it possible to put that too-small pane of glass in its vinyl housing. The foam expanded enough to apply pressure to the shims, keeping them in place. And I also dabbed a little liquid spray foam onto the parts of the shim that fit into a slot in the sash so it could work as an adhesive. The results looked pretty good to the casual observer, though any window expert could immediately tell that this was a hack job by someone who doesn't know how to measure or install insulated glass. Next time I have to replace a pane of insulated glass in a vinyl sash, I'll remove the old one and gets its measurements before ordering a replacement. That will keep me from resorting to fucking spray foam, which (as with duct tape and superglue) is almost never the right answer)
All this left me drenched in sweat. On the way home, I decided to go out of my way to visit the Tibetan Center thrift store. On the way, I stopped at the Speedway gas station on Route 28 to buy a Monster energy drink and a small bag of potato chips. There was nothing I wanted at the Tubetan Center, though (had I been feeling a little less financially fragile) I might've bought a dusty old telescope I saw there.
Later I took my second bath in two days. I figure such extravagance is justified on the day after being laid off from a job one has had since 2018.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?230718 feedback
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