Finding a glazing contractor you can count on is harder than it should be.
Not because there aren’t good ones. Because the thing that makes a sub good — whether they’ll answer the phone in week six when something moves — is almost impossible to see in week one. The bid looks fine. The license checks out.
Most GCs call their glazing sub when the tile is done.
It makes sense. Glass is a finish. It goes in near the end, it gets measured off finished surfaces, and there’s nothing for a glass company to do while the framing is still open.
Most of the glass on your projects is one of two types. They look nearly identical once installed. They behave completely differently when something hits them — and that difference is what determines where each one belongs.Most GCs call their glazing sub when the tile is done.
Framed shower doors are forgiving. The frame absorbs a lot of variation, and nobody notices.
Frameless enclosures are the opposite. There’s no frame to hide behind, so every condition in that bathroom shows up in the finished product. When a frameless install goes badly, the glass is almost never the problem.
On most tenant improvements, storefront is one of the last things installed — and one of the first things that should have been ordered.
That gap is where schedules go wrong. The framing is up, the interior is moving, and the storefront package is still sitting in someone’s inbox waiting on a finish decision.