IGMA Summer Meeting Underway in Toronto

The Insulating Glass Manufacturers Alliance (IGMA) Summer Meeting got underway yesterday with an early morning meeting of the certification and education committees. Attendees gathered at 8 a.m. for a two-hour meeting that looked at several issues, beginning with the addition of the certification aspect to the education committee, both in name and scope.

The group decided to incorporate certification into the education committee, according to IGMA executive director Margaret Webb, because it would be beneficial to have documented IGMA stances on the issues of certification.

The first part of the committee meeting was spent defining the objective and goals of the committee in light of the addition. The committee then turned its attention to the IGMA educational program. The "Preventing Insulating Glass Failures" educational seminar is scheduled to be presented at GlassBuild America in September, at Win-door in Toronto in November and again in Tampa, Fla., in December.

Following the update on the IG failure seminar the committee looked at planning of the next seminar IGMA expects to offer--a quality procedure course. In discussing the potential seminar, the educational committee worked on establishing the goals and objectives of the course and moving forward with planning to bring it closer to becoming reality. Committee members discussed what the most important elements of the course should be and the language that would be needed to clearly and adequately address the objectives and goals within the program. A task group was formed that will hold conference calls to facilitate further refinement of the course content and present a proposal of the course curriculum at the next IGMA meeting in February 2007.

The committee also discussed specific certification needs. Members reviewed a report from the gas-fill working group, and discussed that group's recommendations regarding how much gas fill would be mandated for both initial and final fill for a company seeking durability certification.

"What we're talking about is workmanship," said Webb. "This is the test method. We're testing a manufacturer's ability to make a good seal."

A consensus was reached to stress that the 90-80 percent requirements being discussed were merely testing requirements as proof that an IG system could retain gas fill to a given degree, and not a reflection of the percentages of fill a manufacturer is expected to use in the final product.

Before adjourning, the committee reviewed the guidelines governing the testing of double- versus triple-glazed units, agreeing to stay with the current IGMA guideline that all triple-glazed units must be tested, and double-glazed units of like construction from the same manufacturer qualify without separate testing.

After lunch, the technical working groups gathered, starting with the glazing guidelines work group. The group reviewed amendments to the guidelines regarding the use of thermo-plastics and the compatibility thereof with sealants.

Afterward, the group moved on to new business, which led to a debate about whether capillary tubes should be sealed and, if so, how.

"I'm all for an industry position. I think we're all better off [with one industry position] than with many different positions," said Rick Wright of Oldcastle Glass.

A small working group was formed to draft a proposal of the appropriate language for an industry consensus on the sealing of capillary tubes, to be presented at a later date.

Up next was the gas permeability working group, which discussed Phase 2 of the gas permeability project.

"Phase 1 is essentially done," said Bruce Virnelson of PRC DeSoto International, the group's chairperson.

Next, the thermal stress working group met. After some discussion regarding the "dos and don'ts" guidelines, the group took a look at the IGMA thermal stress field service inspection record and made a recommendation for changes to the language therein.

The byproduct was fine-tuning the one page document that works similarly to a checklist and allows glaziers in the field to report breakage. The data will be collected by IGMA for review, with hopes of determining the cause of some of the breakage and the more common types of breakage.

Wrapping up the first day of meetings was the visual quality working group, chaired by Joe Hayden of Pella Corp. Most of the meeting centered around the definitions of industry language created by a task group, which were presented for review and were subjected to several changes. The next topic of conversation was the conformance requirements; adhesive residue, desiccant dusting, dirt/debris, fingerprints, fogging and suction/vacuum cup marks, all as defined by the group in the previous discussion, are not allowed.

Lastly, the group reviewed the environment and parameters that must be met when conducting inspection and were shown photos of visual obstruction that have been added to the appendix to help illustrate the definition.

Task group meetings and technical presentations continue today; the IGMA Summer Meeting runs through Tuesday, August 1.

Stay tuned to USGNN for more information about the IGMA Summer Meeting and look for a recap of the event in the September issue of USGlass.