People assume this is summer work, and for the wrong reason. They think of it as a heat product, so they call in June when a room has become unbearable, which is exactly when everyone else calls too.
Most of what we do can be done in February. Some of it genuinely cannot. The line between the two is worth understanding, because it decides both what is possible and how long you will wait.
The number that matters is the glass, not the forecast
The bond between a covering and a pane needs the glass surface above roughly five degrees. It also needs a stretch of moderate temperature afterwards for the material to cure properly.
Note that this is the surface temperature of the glass, not the air temperature outside. That distinction is the whole thing.
In a heated house in January, the interior face of your living room window is close to room temperature. It might be minus twenty in the driveway and the pane in front of us is at eighteen degrees. That is a perfectly good working surface, and we fit interior work through the winter every year without any of it being marginal.
What runs all year
Interior applications, which is the large majority of what we do. Solar control, dual reflective privacy, security glazing, decorative and frosted finishes, and switchable partitions. All of it goes on the inside face of the glass in a heated space.
There is a small practical difference in winter and it is worth knowing. We need the room reasonably warm and we are working with liquids, so the space wants to be at normal living temperature rather than turned down while nobody is home. If the house is empty during the day and the heat is set back to twelve degrees, tell us and we will ask you to bring it up for the morning.
What stops in October
Exterior applications. Some glass, particularly certain tempered and non-Low-E panes, needs the covering fitted to the outside face with a sealed edge perimeter so it survives weather.
That work is booked between roughly April and October and there is no way around it. The exterior surface of a pane in November is at outdoor temperature, the bond will not take, and a job forced through anyway will lift within a season. If a site visit in February concludes that a particular window needs exterior work, that window goes on the spring list and we fit everything else now.
The cottage problem
This is the one that catches people every year, and it is worth reading even if the rest of this does not apply to you.
An unheated, drained cottage in November is not a winter install. It is a failed install. The glass is at outdoor temperature throughout the building, there is no heat to bring it up, and nothing we fit will hold.
So there are two workable positions for a lake property:
- Winterised and heated. We can work through the season exactly as we would in a house in town.
- Drained and shut for the winter. The work has to happen before you close up, which in practice means booking in August for a September date, or waiting for spring opening.
September and the first half of October are the busiest two weeks in our calendar, because every owner on every lake wants the same thing finished before Thanksgiving. Owners who ring in August get a date before closing weekend. Owners who ring the week they are shutting down get booked for May and spend the winter thinking about the glass they did not reinforce.
Why January is the smart time to book
Here is the scheduling reality, stated plainly because it is useful to you.
Our year has two peaks. The first is June and July, when the heat arrives and everyone discovers their west-facing room again. The second is September and early October, when cottage country closes up.
January to March is quiet. Booking then gets you the earliest date, the most flexibility on which day, and a finished job before the season it was meant for. The room that was unusable last July is sorted before next July rather than six weeks into it.
There is no winter discount and we are not going to invent one. What there is instead is availability, which in a trade where the answer in June is often "three weeks Tuesday" is worth something on its own.
Curing, and the phone call we get in week two
One thing to expect regardless of season. Coverings take up to about thirty days to fully cure, and cooler conditions push that toward the longer end of the range.
During that period you may see slight haze, or small pockets of moisture trapped between the covering and the glass. This is normal, it is part of the process, and it clears on its own as the material cures. It does not need attention and it is not a fault.
We mention it at handover and it is in the paperwork, and we still get the occasional call in week two from someone convinced something has gone wrong. Nothing has. Give it the month.
