Site-Built Curtain Wall
What is Site-Built Curtain Wall?
Site-Built Curtain wall is partially pre-fabricated in the shop but assembled on site. The glass is field installed or “glazed”, with installers manually handling each piece of glass. Performance is heavily influenced by the experience and workmanship of field installers. Installation can often be limited by environmental elements, site access and jobsite restrictions.
Due to Mission Glass’ history of highly complex installations, we’ve been able to innovate and utilize pre-fabrication of site-built systems to drastically reduce the number of steps typically required on-site for these types of curtain walls. This allows for higher quality as well as the ability to meet tighter schedule durations.
Site-built curtain walls are ideal for smaller projects that have a higher degree of complexity and limited building movement characteristics. These systems are also ideal where field-conditions are expected to be changed or unknown until late in the construction process. Due to the field-assembly required, site-built curtain walls also require much more site area to accommodate the machinery and lift equipment necessary to hoist materials into their final position.
Our Process
Mission Glass receives pre-finished “stock lengths” from our manufacturer(s) which are cut, machined and partially assembled at our fabrication facility based on shop drawings, or field-verified dimensions of the existing structure. These components are then transported to site where they are fully assembled, glazed and sealed.
Mission Glass Quality
The experience of our craftspeople is a key advantage Mission Glass has in installing site-built curtain wall systems. We train all installers in numerous aspects and varying levels of complexity to ensure they have a well-rounded knowledge of all the intricacies that are required of highly complex site-built curtain wall systems. Many of our installers start out being trained in our fabrication shop to learn our core principles, then graduate to become site installers and learn the intricacies involved with all of the moving parts on a project site.
Mission Glass has had the privilege of providing curtain wall services for projects all over the Greater Seattle and Portland areas. Review our project galleries to see how we can help you.
