Glass Week Meetings Come to a Close

There was plenty of discussion at the Glass Association of North America’s (GANA) insulating glass division meeting yesterday, the last day of the GANA-sponsored Glass Week 2007.

During the division’s technical committee meeting GANA technical director Greg Carney discussed a concern raised by Joseph Smith of Applied Research Associates Inc. During his presentation on hurricane- and blast-resistance earlier in the week, Smith had talked about: mislabeling (for more information CLICK HERE). Carney asked if this was a topic that needed to be addressed by the association by establishing a procedure for proper labeling.

“I think it’s worth letting everyone know the problem,” said Rick Wright of Oldcastle Glass. “If you have it labeled incorrectly … that’s a huge liability,” added John Davis of Applied Materials.

Carney said a document produced by the group could provide a uniform way of labeling the glass.

Tracy Rogers of Edgetech IG Inc. added, “You have to assume they have a practice for doing it [labeling] right, they’re just not following it.”

Without consensus, and with limited time, the issue was added to a list of concerns to discuss at the next meeting, September 12-14 at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. Rogers brought up another concern in the area of new business for the division.

“Something that came up with our company is … the use of capillary tubes in insulating glass units,” he said. “No association has put together a standard practice for using capillary tubes.”

The division members discussed the usefulness of drafting such a document.

“[It should address] when to use them and how to close them,” noted Wright. “If we can have an industry position we’re all better off.”

Rogers’ motion to have the technical committee address this topic was approved, and a task group under that committee was formed for this purpose. The insulating glass division promotional committee, meanwhile, has continued to fine-tune an educational presentation on thermal performance factors in insulating glass, to be presented at the BEC Conference, March 4-6 in Las Vegas.

The group also discussed the task of creating a white paper on green building initiatives and the creation of a video on insulating glass, two initiatives that will be pursued down the road.