Plenty of buildings get their atrium glazing inspected properly and then lose most of the value of it, because what came back was a paragraph saying the roof was in fair condition with some minor defects noted.
That report tells the next person nothing. Fair compared with what? Which minor defects, and where exactly? A glazing inspection is only worth what the record of it is worth, and the record is the part most often skimped.
The point of the record is comparison
A single inspection gives you a snapshot. Two inspections of the same building, recorded the same way, give you a direction of travel, and the direction is what you actually need in order to make decisions.
A gasket that has shrunk back three millimetres is a note. The same gasket having shrunk further since the last visit is a programme. You can only see the second thing if the first was written down precisely enough to measure against.
That means consistency matters more than depth. A simple format applied identically every year beats an exhaustive report that nobody repeats.
Give every pane an address
The foundation is a numbering system for the roof. Bays and panes, set out on a plan, with the numbering fixed so it never changes between visits.
Without it, every finding is approximate. “Cracked pane on the south side” sends the next contractor up to look for it. “Pane C7 cracked, lower edge, 400mm from the glazing bar” sends them straight to it with the right glass on the van.
The plan is worth drawing once properly, with orientation marked and access points shown. It’s the single document that makes every subsequent report usable.
What belongs in the record
Glass condition first, pane by pane. Cracks, chips, scratches, and their position within the pane, because an edge defect and a centre defect have different consequences. Misting or condensation between the leaves of a sealed unit, which tells you the edge seal has gone. Any delamination on laminated glass, usually starting at an edge.
Framework next. Corrosion and where it is, paint or coating failure, distortion, fixings that have loosened or gone missing, and the condition of thermal breaks where they’re visible.
Seals and gaskets, in detail. Hardness, shrinkage at corners, splits, sections that have lifted out of the rebate, and previous repairs with sealant applied over the original detail. That last one matters because it tells a later contractor why a drainage path isn’t working.
Drainage gets its own section. Gutters, channels, outlets, weep holes, whether they’re clear, whether water was standing anywhere, and whether an overflow exists.
Then the access record. What method was used, which anchor points were used and when they were last tested, what the floor loading constraint was, and anything that made the work harder than the last time. The next inspection gets quoted off this, and the Work at Height Regulations place a documented obligation on the planning side of it anyway.
Photographs, with discipline
Photographs are the difference between a report and a filing cabinet item. They need to be referenced to the pane numbering, taken from a repeatable position, and labelled.
Twenty pictures of glass look identical a year later. Twenty pictures labelled against the plan, with the same shot of pane C7 taken from the same place at each visit, show you a crack propagating.
Something in frame for scale helps. A rule against a shrunk gasket turns an impression into a measurement.
The part that turns a record into a decision
Findings should carry a severity and a timeframe rather than a description alone. Something that needs attention now, something for the next planned visit, something to watch, something that belongs in the capital plan.
That classification is what lets the record be read by someone who isn’t a glazier. A facilities manager can take a list with timeframes to a budget meeting. They can’t do much with a list of observations.
Knowing which system you’re looking at underpins all of it, and this guide to architectural glazing materials and systems covers the types that turn up on commercial roofs. The specification detail belongs in the record too: glass make-up, coating type and which face it’s on, unit thickness, framework system if it can be identified. Every one of those becomes a question when a pane needs replacing, and answering it from paperwork is faster and cheaper than answering it from a survey.
The inspection record also feeds the cleaning schedule, since what a maintenance visit reveals about glass nobody sees up close often sets the interval better than a contract does.
Contractors who treat the report as the deliverable rather than a formality, Sky Access Glazing included, will hand over something structured enough to compare year on year. The Glass and Glazing Federation is a sensible first check on who holds what accreditation.
Ask for a sample report before you appoint anyone. If it’s prose with no pane numbering and no severity ratings, you’ll be buying the same snapshot every year and never getting a trend out of it.
