There ya go then...watch out for that tempered glass!
I got caught out big time, I nibbed off some paint speckles on some glass, didn't think anything of it and also didn't know about the dangers of 'fabricating debris'.
Customer complains....
I check over the work...scratches were appalling....
It's a long story, but to cut it short I tried to replicate what I had done to see if it was me...I couldn't make a mark on the glass, not with the Unger razer scraper or a rusty old stanley scraper, had the customer standing behind me as I 'Proved' it couldn't have been me that scratched the glass, not with the equipment that I used...
Obviously I had thoroughly knifed off all of the debris, ergo it wasn't there to scratch the glass when I tried to replicate it.
I totally believed it at the time too, it was only months later when I viewed a link on the forum somewhere that I read about this problem with tempered glass, and I've since come across it several times.
If you see paint, or silicone or cellotape on the glass and you are about to whip out your trusty scraper then check very carefully first.
The blade will find the debris if it is there, and it is also the only way to check for it too.
As in the States, this is going to become an increasingly big problem for us UK window cleaners due to the fact that just about all double glazed units are now made with tempered glass.
I've started telling my commercial customers (shops and so on) not to use cellotape to stick posters and so on in the windows just in case they have tempered glass; have already had to demonstrate to a pharmacy I do that I could not remove some old adhesive from cellotape because the glass was tempered and had fabrication debris on it.
This isn't a subject that has been discussed much on the forum, most of us have used scrapers for years and years and never had a problem, so I would say that the majority of UK window cleaners, even those who have been in the trade for decades are not remotely aware of this growing problem.
Ian