Reverse Glazing in Colac: When the Glass Cannot Get Inside the Building
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Three windows needed replacing at a building in Colac. Each panel measured roughly 2700mm x 2500mm and weighed around 200 kilograms.
The size was manageable. What made this one interesting was the frames.
The frames could only be glazed from inside
Glazing frames are almost always built to be glazed from outside. The beads come off the external face, the panel goes in from the street, and the beads go back on. That is the normal way round, and it is why a glazier can replace a shopfront without ever entering the building.
These frames were the opposite. They were designed so the glass could only be installed from the inside.
On its own that is not a problem. You take the panel indoors and glaze it from within the room.
Except the glass could not get inside
Two things ruled that out.
The panels were wider than the doorways, so there was no way to carry or wheel them into the building in the first place.
And even if there had been, the openings ran floor to ceiling. There was no headroom to stand a panel up or rotate it once it was inside. A 2.5 metre panel needs somewhere to swing, and that space did not exist.
So the glass had to be installed from inside a frame it could not physically reach from inside the building.
Reverse glazing with the Jekko
The answer was to bring the glass to the inside face of the frame without ever taking it through the building. We used our Jekko mini crane to do it in three controlled movements.
In sideways, from outside. The panel was brought in on its side, which is the only orientation narrow enough to pass through the opening.
Rotated to gain clearance. Once through, the panel was turned over to get the clearance needed for the height of the opening.
Walked backwards into the frame. With the panel oriented correctly, it was moved back into the frame from the inside face and set into position.
Working a panel into a frame from the reverse side like this is known as reverse glazing. It is not something you improvise on the day with a panel this heavy. The sequence has to be planned before the glass leaves the vehicle, because there is no way to reset halfway through with 200 kilograms suspended.
The lift, on video
Why the crane is the whole job
Three panels, 200 kilograms each, rotated mid-air and reversed into a frame. Done by hand that is not a difficult job, it is an unsafe one, and it is the situation where glaziers get crushed fingers, back injuries and dropped panels.
The Jekko holds the weight and controls every movement, which means the panel can be turned and positioned precisely rather than muscled. On this job that produced the outcome that matters: no manual handling of the glass, and no injuries.
It also protected the building. A 200 kg panel swung by hand in a room with no clearance takes out ceilings, walls and door frames on the way through.
The job in short
- Site: Colac
- Scope: Three window panels replaced
- Panel size: Approx. 2700mm x 2500mm each
- Weight: Approx. 200 kg each
- Complication: Frames glazed from the inside only, panels wider than the doorways, no headroom to rotate indoors
- Method: Reverse glazing, brought in sideways from outside, rotated for clearance, walked back into the frame
- Equipment: Jekko mini crane
- Manual handling of the glass: None
- Injuries: None
Other jobs where the lifting equipment decided the approach: a 200 kg bank shopfront installed with no manual handling, a 220 kg shopfront on Latrobe Terrace after a car went through it, a 140 kg double-glazed unit craned over nine metres of garden, and two 2.96-metre panels lifted out so a car wash could be serviced.
