Fitting large fixed units.

[gavztheouch]

Hi I have some large triple glazed units to fit. The biggest is around 2.6 by 3m.  The company that sold the units have a glazing robot which they can supply with labour at £1000 per day. This could work well if the ground around the house is hard, it was last week but the rain this week has turned it soft again. 
 

Another option is renting or buying from AliExpress a glazing cup vacuum pad that I can sling from our digger or forklift. These can lift over 500kg which is well within the weight. The biggest problem I can see with these is drawing the window into the rough opening. The rope it is dangling from can only get so close to the house so it’s not as handy as moving it into place with a glazing robot. The robot has a much more positive placement.

 

How are large units normally fitted without the use of loads of people . Even people might be tricky as only so many hand can get a good position to lift.

 

If I had to do it myself. I think I would prob use the forklift or digger with a vacuum pad. Maybe a chain hoist between the digger and pad to give some height adjustment. I would hold the window away from the house to avoid damage from the digger getting too close. Prob put a hand sucker pad to each bottom corner of the window and attach a ratchet strap to each hand sucker pad to draw the window inside the house. As the window swings in lower it down with the chain hoist. ??

[Nickfromwales]

Crane option should result in less damage / death. Really poor place to take a risk on items from chuffing Aliexpress ?! 🤦‍♂️😉 Doubt they have been through much quality control or rigorous testing…..😑

 

If one of those drops on to someone they’re Donald Ducked.

[Mr Punter]

If you have several to do, the glazing robot sounds a good idea.  You may need to spend a while prepping the ground.

[Russell griffiths]

Who is paying for a broken window. 
I would not consider a digger anything like gentle enough. 
Use the digger for what it’s for, dig out that soft ground and replace with type 1. 
a few grands worth of glass is not something to mess with. 
what do they weigh out of interest. 
 

my 4.8m sliders we lifted in with 5 blokes and suction cups. 
 

having now done some sums your 2.6 x3m is 7.8m of glass. 
my 4.8 x2.1 is 10.08 of glass so they could well be liftable by hand. 
depends how high they need to go, we had to lift from a pallet crate up 300mm onto the door step, i would not have wanted to lift them 750mm high or more, I think if I did I would have used the telehandler and suction cup frame that you can hire. 
 

our window company quoted to use a glazing robot, I declined and said I would lift them myself, when the fitters turned up I asked them about the robot and they said they prefer to pick them up by hand. 

 

[gavztheouch]

Il don’t know off hand but my slider is smaller than yours Russel. Prob closer to 3m but it is quite tall at about 2.6m which makes it more intimidating from a tipping over perspective. I also think 5 people could lift all my windows in. I have an insulated raft base which makes the finished floor 500mm higher than the current outside ground level.

 

I think it might be worth my time trying to prep the site to take the robot in any weather. I was trying to avoid putting any sub base down that will need to be dug out again to fit the drains. If I put the drains in first it will delay getting the windows in. 

[Tosh]

We used a telehandler for our sliders. We left it all strapped up as delivered on the pallet then got it as close as possile with the forks then unstrapped it and 'walked it straight off the pallet and direct onto the threshold with suction cups. Think it was in the region of 250kg, me on the telehandler plus 2 others. All other windows me + wife, except a few of the heaviest which were just over 100kg so roped in my son to help with those.

 

If lifting from above maybe have a temp platform (spare pallets/blocks/etc) outside the opening to drop it onto and then walk it in?

[Onoff]

Pah! Last "big" unit I was involved with replacing was 540 kg, 150' up.