CGI Custom & Geometric Windows Nationwide | TruePane Windows & Doors

CGI Custom & Geometric Windows in Oakland Park: What to Know First

We replace and repair CGI custom and geometric windows in Oakland Park as an independent CGI service provider, and most jobs are finished within five to seven business days of the estimate. The honest price posture is this: custom-shaped CGI work runs higher than a standard rectangle because the glass is cut to a radius or an angle, not pulled off a shelf. If you own a CGI arched transom, a trapezoid, a circle-top, or an oversized fixed unit and it has started to fog, bind, or leak, call (863) 264-3649 and we’ll give you a straight answer about whether it can be saved or needs to be rebuilt.

Call (863) 264-3649

This page is for Oakland Park homeowners who already know CGI makes a serious impact window. What they often don’t know is that custom and geometric glass puts different stress on the frame than a standard sash, and the failure modes are different too. Dale Kessler grew up off Prospect Road in Oakland Park, so he knows what salt air, afternoon thunderstorms, and hurricane season do to a shaped unit over twenty years. We’ll walk you through what goes wrong, what it costs, and how we fix it.

How CGI Products Fail - and How We Fix Them

CGI builds a stout window. The frames are heavy aluminum, the laminated glass is thick, and the hardware is made for coastal wind loads. But custom and geometric units have their own trouble spots, and we see the same patterns repeat across Oakland Park homes that went up in the 1990s and early 2000s. Here are the five most common failures we encounter, each named by what we actually find when we pull the trim.

• Fogged glass in fixed geometric units, especially circles and hexagons. CGI’s fixed shaped windows use a dual-seal insulated glass unit, and once the perimeter seal lets go, the argon escapes and condensation takes its place. We see this most often on the Hessel series, which CGI ran for years on residential custom work. The fix is a new IGU cut to the exact template of the original, installed with a fresh structural glazing tape rather than a bead of caulk someone smeared over the old one.
• Water intrusion at the radius corners of arched transoms. An arched frame has to shed water at the apex, and if the weep system was drilled at the wrong angle or has filled with Oakland Park’s fine limestone dust, the water backs up and finds the interior. We clean or re-drill the weeps, check the sill flashing, and reseal the glass with a compatible structural silicone. This is a CGI-specific detail: their frames use a deep glazing pocket, and the wrong sealant will fail inside two seasons.
• Binding operators on operable geometric sashes, especially triangles and trapezoids. A triangle window has a short hinge side and a long hinge side. If the frame was shimmed even an eighth of an inch out of plane, the operator arm has to fight the geometry every time it opens. We see this on CGI’s Estate Collection casements with trapezoid tops. Our fix starts with re-squaring the frame, not just replacing the crank, because a new operator in a twisted frame will bind again by next summer.
• Stress cracks radiating from the corners of sharp-angled shapes. A true triangle or a parallelogram puts a stress riser at every acute corner, and CGI’s laminated glass handles it better than most, but twenty years of thermal cycling and a few hurricane pressure cycles will eventually win. When we see a stress crack on a CGI unit, we check the frame for twisting before we cut the new glass, because if the frame moved, a new pane will crack in the same corner within a year or two.
• Failed glazing tape on oversized fixed picture windows with radius tops. The bigger the pane, the more it expands and contracts, and the more it works the tape that holds it in the frame. On CGI’s oversized fixed units, we routinely find the original tape has hardened to plastic and pulled away from the glass at the top of the radius. The glass isn’t broken, but it is moving against the frame, which lets water and air through. We pull the stop, remove the old tape, clean the channel to bare metal, and reset the glass with a fresh bead of closed-cell structural tape matched to CGI’s original spec.

Our CGI Custom & Geometric Windows Process

Every CGI job starts with a phone call to (863) 264-3649, and a live person answers. Here is how the work goes from there, step by step, so you know exactly what to expect before we ever set a ladder against your house.

1. 1
   We measure the opening twice. Custom and geometric glass is unforgiving. An eighth of an inch off on a radius template means a gap that shows or a unit that binds. Our technicians measure the rough opening, the frame, and the existing glass, then cut a physical template before anything gets ordered.
2. 2
   We give you a written line-item quote on paper. You’ll see the glass cost, the labor, the sealant, the parts, and the warranty registration, separately. No verbal handshake. No “we’ll figure it out when we get in there.”
3. 3
   We confirm OEM or quality aftermarket parts. For glass, we use laminated units that meet or exceed the original CGI spec, cut to match the exact shape. For hardware like operators and hinges, we’ll give you the OEM option and a proven aftermarket option side by side with the real price difference, not a guess. We’ll tell you when aftermarket makes sense and when it doesn’t.
4. 4
   We do the work in one visit when the materials allow it. Most CGI replacements are finished the same day we start. If a custom IGU has to be templated and fabricated, we’ll schedule the install for the day it arrives and not before, so you’re not living with a tarped opening.
5. 5
   We test the unit before we clean up. We cycle every operable window, check the weep system, run a water test on the frame, and verify the glass is seated true against the frame with a feeler gauge. If the pane is not true, the job is not done.
6. 6
   We register both warranty layers in writing. The glass manufacturer’s warranty and our Done Right Promise are both documented, with durations stated, before our truck leaves your driveway. If something is not right within 90 days, you call and we come back and make it right. No paperwork fights, no arguing.

What CGI Custom & Geometric Windows Costs in Oakland Park

CGI custom and geometric window work in Oakland Park runs from about $600 for a small fixed glass replacement up to $4,500 or more for a large arched or radius-top unit with a full frame rebuild. Most of the jobs we quote land between $900 and $2,800. Here is how the pricing tends to shake out.

• Fixed geometric IGU replacement, small to medium (circle, hexagon, octagon): $600 to $1,400
• Arched or radius-top transom glass replacement: $900 to $2,200
• Oversized fixed picture window with custom shape, glass and re-glaze: $1,800 to $3,800
• Operable geometric sash with new hardware and re-squaring: $1,200 to $2,800
• Full custom CGI unit rebuild, frame and glass: $2,500 to $4,500+

What moves the price is the size of the opening, the complexity of the radius or angle, whether we can reuse the existing frame or need to rebuild it, and whether the hardware is salvageable. If the job requires a permit, we pull it and the inspection passed is part of the price we quoted, not a surprise line item afterward. Call (863) 264-3649 and we’ll get you an exact number, in writing, before you spend a dollar.

Why Oakland Park Homeowners Call TruePane Windows & Doors for CGI Work

We’ve been serving Oakland Park and the surrounding communities since 2008, and Dale Kessler founded TruePane Windows & Doors in 2008 on a rule that still hangs on the whiteboard: if it is not sealed right, it is not done. That matters when you’re dealing with a custom-shaped CGI unit, because the margin for error on a radius cut is zero. We are not the cheapest bid in town, and we don’t try to be. We are the last call you should have to make.

Our technicians are background-checked and uniformed, and they treat your house the way they would treat their own mother’s. Every CGI job is covered by the Done Right Promise, which we put in writing. And because we are an authorized installer for more than a dozen manufacturer lines including PGT, CWS, ES Windows, and ECO Window Systems, we can give you a straight comparison when a full replacement makes more sense than a repair. A square deal, in writing, with our name on it.

FAQs

Get a Straight Answer on Your CGI Window

If you own a CGI custom or geometric window in Oakland Park and it is fogging, binding, leaking, or just not sitting right, call us at (863) 264-3649. A live person answers, every time. We’ll set up a free estimate, measure everything twice, and give you a written number with no fine print and no surprises. You’ll know exactly what is wrong, what it costs to fix, and whether it should be fixed or replaced. We’ll be there when we say, and we’ll stand behind the work in writing.

Written by Dale Kessler, Owner, TruePane Windows & Doors at TruePane Windows & Doors, serving Oakland Park and nearby areas.