Reverse Glazing in Colac: When the Glass Cannot Get Inside the Building

Four windows needed replacing at a building in Colac. Three across the front, and a fourth on the side of the building. 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.

Nobody else could complete it

This job had already defeated other glaziers before we were called. That is not a criticism of them. Without the right lifting equipment there is no safe way to do it at all, and the honest answer at that point is to walk away rather than attempt it with manpower.

The combination is what stops it: internally glazed frames, panels too wide for the doors, and no clearance to turn 200 kilograms indoors. Remove any one of those and it becomes an ordinary job.

Reverse glazing with the Jekko MPK06

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 MPK06 glass lifter and its four-cup vacuum head 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

Four 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 MPK06 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 finished frontage

The job in short

• Site: Colac
• Scope: Four window panels replaced, three across the front and one to the side
• 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
• Background: Other glaziers had been unable to complete the work
• Method: Reverse glazing, brought in sideways from outside, rotated for clearance, walked back into the frame
• Equipment: Jekko MPK06 glass lifter with four-cup vacuum head
• 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.