Moving a big, heavy window around on a jobsite and jockeying it safely into position in a window opening is a chore, even when plenty of strong arms are available to carry the weight. There’s just no good place to grab onto the window without bending over and risking back injury. To solve this problem, installers of commercial glass have long used vacuum cups that can be clamped pretty much anywhere onto the fixed panels to create a handy carrying handle and help manage the load.
Transporting and installing a large, heavy window is safer and easier with vacuum cups, which clamp onto the glass (top photo). Wood’s Powr-Grip N4950 8-inch-diameter vacuum cups (above) are rated for 125 pounds and have a red-line indicator that signals a loss of vacuum pressure. They come with a carrying case.
On a recent project covered in JLC, the crew used hand-held vacuum cups on loan from the glass supplier to help them install large, fixed-panel windows (see photo, below left, and “Building a High-Performance Window Wall,” by Nate Hayward, Mar/21). This inspired one member of the crew, JLC contributor Kevin Lovejoy, to purchase his own pair of 8-inch-diameter Wood’s Powr-Grip vacuum cups for installing the high-performance triple-glazed windows typically used on Passive House projects. He reports that the cups have made it much easier to handle these heavy windows.
Vacuum cups are available in different sizes and load capacities and from a number of manufacturers. The 8-inch Powr-Grip N4950 cups purchased by Lovejoy are rated at 125 pounds lifting capacity and have a red-line indicator to warn the user of any significant vacuum loss. I found them online for about $85 each. wpg.com