removing aluminum windows

Hello everyone, After much thought and help with everyone on this site. We have decided to replace our double hung windows with Alside vinyl double hung windows and they should be started in a couple weeks weather premitting around here.
I have 2 questions. The installer told us it is going to be difficult to remove the top sash of the alumium windows. Does anyone know how this is usually done? The installer said something about crushing it. Does this mean glass everyplace? We live in GA. and the windows were put in when the house was built 11 yrs ago.These are probably dumb questions but its been on my mind. thought I'd ask. Thanks for any info.

 

If it results in "glass everywhere", you've got the wrong installer!! I have had to resort to scoring and breaking glass on occasion to get an old window out, but not very often. And when it HAS come to that, it was so as to keep the mess (AND THE DANGER) to an absolute minimum. In an 11 year old aluminum framed window, there is NO reason why the glass can't be removed from the frame in tact (as a whole pane) Should be NO broken glass. Then, maybe, the frame has to get crushed to get it out. But that is just bending aluminum. Nothing messy there (except for maybe the occasional blood thing!!).

Talk with the installer again (BEFORE he starts working) and clarify what he meant by crushing something!

 

If I remember correctly, you have a single hung window in there now, which means the top glass is fixed. To get that out, there should be a vinyl strip that holds the glass in the frame and generally some REAL sticky caulk between the glass and the frame. The strip comes out fairly easy, the caulk is sometimes a bugger....I've found heating the glass/frame contact area with a propane torch will soften the caulk enough to allow the glass to free up and come out as a unit.....If the installer is familiar with this type of window, there should be no danger of "glass everywhere", though even with the best of effort, sometime you do get a cracked glass taking these out.

Most likely he was talking about having to collapse the frame itself after the upper glass and lower sash are removed. There is a nailing flange that extends back under your siding or brick that can't be accessed and the window frame has to be pulled apart in order to get it out.....not a big deal......but sometimes I've had people think the old window was going to be something they could use or sell, and they aren't......they will be a pile of glass and wrecked aluminum scrap.

Like Lefty, I sometimes have to break a glass to get it out......in the case of steel casement type windows with a fixed glass, the old glazing putty is like concrete and about the only practical way to get it out is to break it, but even then, I tape both sides of the glass with duct tape and then tap it all around the edges with a hammer......it comes out with very little mess. You don't just haul back and smack a glass with a big hammer

 

Thank you both for all the help and info. We do have single hung, double pane windows. Only the bottom moves. I realize we won't be about to reuse the old windows, don't want to and the installer said he will haul them away its in the contract.
I had seen on tv how a metal window was removed and they had glass everywhere and then I remembered what the installer had told us about having to crush the top sash because it doesn't move. Thats partly why I got concerned. I'm sure this will be fine. I talked to 9 of his 17 references he gave us and all of them said he did a wonderful job. Some where siding jobs some where windows, some where both. Thanks again for you help its put my mind at ease.