Thermal Shock Failure -Who Wants To Discuss It?

[EWF]

Hi Rob,

If I did not email it, I sent you a link in a previous thread. I definitely recall your acknowledging it and responding to it. I am prepping for travel and can't do the research right now.

That Guidebook may be old, but it represented the only attempt by AIMCAL I am aware of to set guidelines. Even following them is no guarantee that you will never crack a pane. I have had Silver 68 break glass. There is a recent thread on these boards about breakage with Clear 4M.

It seems that everyone sets their own boundaries in terms of what is and what is not acceptable. The only "official" industry guideline is the book I mentioned, but it is clear that those rules are not being obseved. I disagree that simply because the book is old vintage, that it is irrelevant.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that distributors constantly push manufacturers to approve higher and higher TSEa films in order to be competitive. At some point we all have to set limits on what we will accept. Mine is 54% and even with that relatively conservative guideline, EWF typically pays out $7-12K per year in breakage claims. I have paid claims on Silver 68%, White Matte & Nichrome 60% - films you would consider low risk.

No matter what you consider safe or not safe, ALL manufacturers should publish TSEa so that we can make informed decisions.

-Howard

[EWF]

As far as I know, lot of MFG's (not distributors) self-fund there warranties so it's hard to say who is wagging the dog.

Agreed. It's all mostly self insured since it works out to be only a small percentage of your turnover every year. Once you have been around the industry long enough, you know exactly how much per sq/ft to add in for the "warranty fund". On many films, it can be a fraction of a penny per sq/ft. Films with higher TSEa or a history of breakage typically carry larger premiums.

EWF is self insured up to a set dollar amount, then our partners reimburse us over an agreed amount. In the event of a catastrohic event, our commercial general liability umbrella would kick in - but I can't imagine that ever happening given how careful we are with 54% max TSEa.

-Howard

[EWF]

Rob,

On that list you corrected, some corrections to your corrections:

Global is currently not actively involved in the Flat Glass Market in the USA - hence my omission of their name on the list. You are correct - they did publish TSEa on the films they were selling. I hope they return soon.

Also:

At SEMA, I was furnished with TSEa data from 3 companies on your list of "Do Not Publish".

-Howard

[EWF]

our breakage has always been down well below 2%. In regards to our products, if TSEa is the big issue that it is being made out to be then why are our averages so lower than the glazing industry?

2% ?? Are you sure??? That is off the charts. EWF's payout rate was 0.12% for 2011. Are you really 20 times higher??

I am definitely sticking with 54% !!!

-Howard

[vquestfilms.com]

our breakage has always been down well below 2%. In regards to our products, if TSEa is the big issue that it is being made out to be then why are our averages so lower than the glazing industry?

2% ?? Are you sure??? That is off the charts. EWF's payout rate was 0.12% for 2011. Are you really 20 times higher??

I am definitely sticking with 54% !!!

-Howard

It is all relative Howard. I know we do more flat glass than you.

I said it is less than 2% and that would be globallly. Like I also said, I do not have the figures for 2011. I'm sure we do way more commercial than you do so it will affect our flat glass percentages. We revised our F2G reccomendations and reconfigured some films so I believe it will be a lot lower. As far as payouts I do not have that figure but you do have to consider that we offer more coverage to our network at up too $2,000.00 per pane replacement so we will payout more even if our percentages of breakage were equal to yours.

Our percentages of breakage are lower than other film MFG's and well below the glass industry.

[DenMcM]

Our percentages of breakage are lower than other film MFG's and well below the glass industry.

All Mfg's ?

[vquestfilms.com]

Hi Rob,

No matter what you consider safe or not safe, ALL manufacturers should publish TSEa so that we can make informed decisions.

-Howard

I have a slightly different viewpoint on this. What is the benefit of publishing TSEa publically? Really now, does a retail customer need TSEa's? True, there are capable dealers that can interpret that data but there are also others that will misinterpret. Better to make F2G recommendations available to your network of dealers. Furthermore, with the complexities of glass it is much better to train your network to use meters to inspect glass and then work closely with their distributor for recommendations. We started promoting this and breakage incidents are declining.

[vquestfilms.com]

Our percentages of breakage are lower than other film MFG's and well below the glass industry.

All Mfg's ?

I said "other" not "all mfg's" Dennis.

[vquestfilms.com]

our breakage has always been down well below 2%. In regards to our products, if TSEa is the big issue that it is being made out to be then why are our averages so lower than the glazing industry?

2% ?? Are you sure??? That is off the charts. EWF's payout rate was 0.12% for 2011. Are you really 20 times higher??

I am definitely sticking with 54% !!!

-Howard

It is easy to sensationalize but stop for a minute and consider some newer thinking Howard. Let's use the 2% even if it is not the actual figure. So a flat glass dealer who sells 1000 panes per year is going to see 20 panes break and most of that will be completely covered with the $2,000.00 per pane coverage so the dollar amount is really not an issue.

Your commodity films will break maybe 2 panes out of a thousand. So what does the 998 panes net your dealers in profit? Your FG films as cheap as they sell for are easily acquired from any supplier so the price per sq ft sold is going to be a lot lower (I will refrain from giving numbers) and thus your margins as a dealer will be lower due to the amount of competition that has access to the same product.

Now take a patented product that is not sold over the Internet to anyone that has a credit card. Competition is lessened by availability and healthy margins are maintained. So I would venture to guess that my 980 windows would net my customers more profit than your 998. Plus they will not bring down the market value of window film as your readily available commodity products would. The value to the dealer is not only profit that they can use to build their businesses and hire new people, but they also do not have to worry about their customers being able to buy the same window film that they sell over the Internet.

So we can attempt to sensationalize breakage percentages which are actually lower than the glass industry. But what I try to focus on is a new way of doing business that builds value into our industry rather than sending it back to 1990 prices with little to no margin do in part to the resulting over saturation that comes from suppliers trying to fight for market share in a commodity market.

[vquestfilms.com]

Have a great weekend everyone. I'm going to go skiing and play around with my GoPro camera so I'll be offline for the weekend. I'll pick up where we left off on Monday.