IGMA Summer Meeting Opens on the Beach

The Insulating Glass Manufacturers Alliance (IGMA) summer meeting opened today at the Hyatt Regency in Huntington Beach, Calif.

The meeting opened this morning with the glazing guidelines working group. The group continued a discussion begun at the last meeting on creating guidelines for closing capillary tubes in the field. The group had been asked to create a standardized method for guidance for closing capillary tubes for the benefit of those end users who prefer to close the tubes.

Since the last meeting, Bill Lingnell of Lingnell Consulting Services had been able to test capillary tubes donated by manufacturers. He reported to the group that he has used wire cutters and crimpers to close the hard stainless and soft stainless tubes, and has also tried putting a dollop of silicone on the end of the tubes, a method that seems to work well. Lingnell said that he has gotten erratic results thus far, and still has other methodologies to review, but is closer to reaching a conclusion that will allow him to prepare a technical bulletin on the subject for IGMA.

The gas permeability work group also met this morning. After the group reviewed a near-final draft of the executive summary of phase one of its evaluation of the permeability of sheet report review, discussion moved onto the draft request for proposal of phase two of the project. Phase two will evaluate the gas permeability of edge seal assemblies.

One member of the audience questioned the benefit of just measuring the permeability of a section of the edge of the insulating glass unit rather than the finished system. Group chair Bruce Virnelson of PRC DeSoto explained that data already exists on the permeability of finished units, and since there is a great deal of variability in that data, testing edge sections may provide some answers about why the variability exists.

Following some final changes, the group aims to send out the request to laboratories before the next meeting.

The IGMA summer meeting continues through Wednesday, June 13.