Glass Block Window

I always seem to have a long list of projects to do around the house. This may have something to do with the fact that the house is over 100 years old. My goal right now is to re-do the bathroom by the end of the summer. That may or may not happen as funds are somewhat limited and we are coming into wedding season – so they will get more limited. But I can do it piece by piece and that is the plan. The first piece was to replace the window. We basically had 2 options a vinyl clad double hung replacement set or glass block. Since the window is along the tub and I want to install a shower I figured we probably would never open the double hung window and it would still allow the wood frame to possible rot from the water. So glass block it is.

I have never done glass block before, but hey that has never stopped me before why should it now?! So I started to look at Home Depot, Menards, Lowes, and other stores for supplies and to estimate the cost. While I was doing this I also researched the how to online on how the process even worked. In doing this I found another supplier that also custom made glass block windows to size you could just pop in. So I dragged the poor wife out and went to visit the glass block people. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited she was about that.

Well the glass block people had by far the best prices on the block by far. It was ½ what it was at the stores. However the price for a pre-made window was a little more that I was willing to pay. If I bought the supplies myself and spent 5-6 hours of time (2 of which I had to do with the pre-fab anyway) the cost was $250 more than just buying the supplies. I figured for $63/hour I would do it myself. So we went ahead and bought all of the supplies. I had previously used Visio to figure out the perfect arrangement of blocks to build the window in to fit the opening (glass block comes in many sizes so you can fit it to odd sizes/shapes) so I knew exactly what to buy. Again I can’t tell you how thrilled the wife was when I showed her draft after draft of the various ways to lay out the window. But hey leave it to a consultant to be thorough on such a minor detail.

Any one Saturday I got to it. The hard part was getting started. While pulling out the old window was easy, my sixth window replacement, window sills are not level, they slope outward. So I used some nails to create a something to prop the blocks up level. It seemed to work great and with the mortar surrounding the nails and now holding the blocks in place the solution worked well. Then I used spacers to set up each row. Two thirds of the way up I put in a plastic vent. It was simple matter of installing the spacers on the previous row, using a trowel to place some mortar and then placing the block in position and moving to the next. When I finished a row I pointed more mortar to make sure the bonds were good. Once the mortar dries you just break the outside parts of the spacers off and re-mortar the holes left behind.

Now this was my first time and I did make a few mistakes. I should have used more spacers. I used remnants of some spacers in place of new ones and ended up not being able to break off the parts the way I would have wanted. Second I pointed too much mortar in the seams so it isn’t evenly distributed. But This is fixable with a wire brush on a dermal, a drill bit, a bit of replacement mortar. So all in all I am pretty happy with how it came out and kinda can’t wait to do the ones in the basement and downstairs bathroom. I must be nutz to consider making glass block windows fun.