The Dizzying World of Window Grilles
For those of you that are looking for window grills or window grill inserts, you might go to Lowe’s and realize that there’s a lot more than you thought about the whole world of window grills.
How we got here…
Originally, the window grill or the muntin was designed to hold the glass panels in place on a window or a door. Now, eventually that went away and larger plates of glass were used and the grills were added on the surface. Sometimes that was on the interior surface. In those cases, those window grills are usually easy to remove. You just lift them off. They’re sort of spring loaded, and they fit into little pockets at the edge of the windows. You pull that out, which makes it pretty easy for washing the windows, or if you want to replace it with something prettier, those come off great. The other option would be window grills that are added to the outside of the glass,
Double Pane and Triple Pane Options
Now that we have double pane windows or triple pane windows, you have the option for the window grills to be added in between the panes of glass, and what that’s going to do for you is make your window free of obstruction so that you can clean your glass without having to worry about those things being in the way. But if you want to upgrade those window grills to something else, you’re probably not going to be able to get those out. Now, I know that there are people out there that can rebuild double or triple insulated windows. My guess is it’s probably just not worth the expense to get those taken apart and remove the existing grills. It has created a problem. Sometimes those window grills actually break inside the glass and fall down, and there’s just really no good way to get those out. By the time you pay somebody to repair that, you might as well have bought a new window, and depending on the size of the window, that can be pretty significant expense.
Inside of the Glass
Generally speaking, the window grills that we sell will apply right onto the inside of the glass. Most of the windows that we’re dealing with these days do not have an exterior mounted window grill unless you’re dealing with an historic home like ours.
Our house was built in the 1863 and on our transom windows, for example, we have no grills or it’s the actual integrated muntins like I was talking about earlier, that are structural. They actually hold the panes of glass, in which case we can mount the grill just on the glass itself, or we can move the grill towards the room side, expand the size of the grill just a little bit and mount it over top so it actually extends to cover the outside edges of the window sash.
Replacement Options
Certainly in the world of window grills, there are an inexhaustible number of different types of patterns and variations. Though most of what you see available at those are going to be pretty consistent, pretty boring.
Reach out if you’re stuck!
If you’re interested in something more decorative, then certainly we can help you out there. If you have specific questions about window grills or muntons, don’t hesitate to give me a holler. Happy to help if we can. You can reach me@forgottenmountain.com. Just drop a note in the comment section and I’ll get back to you.
There’s no AI here, just real people answering real questions. Thanks. Take care.
