One of our current projects, the Franklin Street Station in Reading, PA, involves restoration of dozens of windows and doors originally made in 1929. Seriously damaged by Hurricane Agnes, the building then sat abandoned and deteriorated from neglect and vagrant activity and by 2011 when BARTA began its restoration project for the building, this is is what the building and the windows looked like when we started:
To restore windows so badly damaged, without replacing them, we started by stripping the multiple layers of varnish and paint and ordered replacement glass. (In this project’s case, we ordered new glass instead of using salvaged historical glass because the customer wanted tempered glass in most windows and frosted glass for the restroom windows.) After we have the replacement glass caulked and pinned in, we do the window glazing ourselves – watch the following short video to see how!