I recently inspected a home that had an interesting issue with a window. Failed seals are not a rare find, almost every home over 10 years old has a window with a failed seal and staining or moisture trapped between the two panes of glass. The issue here I found, however, was not so common. Rare in fact!

The window seal had failed and the gas (argon or krypton) in between the inner and outer window panes (the gas is there as an insulator to improve energy efficiency) had escaped but no air or moisture could came back in its place. Visually to the naked eye the window looked fine because there was no staining or moisture in between the panes. This scenario however had caused a vacuum to occur between the two panes that sucked them together thus “collapsing” the glass. Up close and at an angle you may have been able to see a inward bowing of the glass.

This is where my Flir thermal camera came in to save the day! The thermal camera caught the anomaly which you can see the image below. It was a very cool find because without the thermal camera, this defect would most definitely have been missed. You can see the round/oval shaped area that is darker colored in the image below, this is where the two glass panes had been sucked together and were touching each other. That is why the area is colder than the rest of the window. The rest of the window was a warmer color because the air space between the two glass panes was still there.