Facilities managers

The Northern California Facilities Expo: Five Things We Love

September 14, 2023 by Carol S Leave a Comment

Nearly every year since about 100 years ago, we’ve been going to the Northern California Facilities Expo. This year, it was September 12 and 13, 2023. To say we love going would be a vast understatement. Here are just a few reasons we love going. And by the way, we’ve written about facilities managers and window film before.

Here’s the Window Works Crew at the Northern California Facilities Expo!

We love our spot at the Facilities Expo–straight down the main aisle in the middle. And also, we love being next to our friends at Atlas Copco. We got to sponsor Happy Hour with them again this year! By the way, if you missed any of our past posts about the Facilities Expo, here are a few:

Here’s our booth at the Facilities Expo!

You might think we get to see each other often, but we don’t always gather together for long. Here’s more of the crew, below.

You know what else was extra fun this year? Going up in our friend Sunbelt Rentals Mobile Elevating Work Platform (MEWP) and seeing the entire room at the Facilities Expo!

One thing we haven’t talked about is the venue itself–the Santa Clara Convention Center, which is huge and well constructed. You do have to walk a long way to get to the Facilities Expo, but it’s worth it. And look at all that glass! (Oooooh!)

That’s a wrap for 2023! We hope to see you next year at the Facilities Expo!

How Window Film Empowers Facilities Managers: Five Ways

July 13, 2023 by Carol S Leave a Comment

Facilities managers have always known about window film, but they might not understand all the nuances of window film. Facilities managers may just be copying what their predecessors did by installing window film because that’s “what Joe used to do.” While that’s not a bad approach, here are some of the reasons window film can help with the maintenance of your buildings. You know–in case someone ever asks you.

Energy Efficiency

Who doesn’t want to save money, protect the environment, and be more energy efficient? Window film helps reduce the heat gain from the sun. And we’ve all got more sun these days, even foggy San Francisco! Not to mention outlying cities in the Bay Area. San Jose, Santa Clara, the East Bay, and Marin County can get very hot during the summer in particular. We’ve talked about climate change and window film recently, and you might enjoy How Window Film Helps You Battle Climate Change.

Safety and Security

Window film helps hold glass together during times of stress, such as high winds. You don’t want people to get hurt by shards of glass, so it’s a very good idea for high rises, restaurants, and other businesses. During our last winter here in San Francisco some high rises suffered some very high winds, which broke glass and had it shatter on the streets below. Window film can reduce the risk from flying shards.

Privacy

When you have buildings close to each other, there’s a good chance people will be able to see into your building. Your tenants don’t want their neighbors seeing everything they’re doing, even if they’re just eating lunch! Window film helps your tenants maintain their privacy, which makes for a safer workplace. There are various styles of window film which can even be used to partially cover glass–for instance when several dentists are sharing an office space and want to create separate spaces.

Glare Reduction

We’re always going on about having to wear sunglasses indoors. Sunglasses do protect your eyes, but why do you have to wear them inside? Instead, put sunglasses on your building! You might like Learn the Best Ways to Use Window Film. Squinting is never a good look for anyone, and having window film can boost productivity, and reduce headaches and squinting.

UV Protection

Last but not least is UV protection. We all have that one friend with the sun-bleached furniture and ugly flooring because the sun’s rays beat down on their office or home. Prevent that bleaching effect with window film protection. Window film blocks up to 99% of UV rays, according to 3M. And even more important? Window film protects your skin. Too much UV can damage your skin and is known to cause skin cancer. Read more about window film and how it protects against skin cancer in this article from the Skin Cancer Foundation. As for us, we’ll be using window film on the windows as well as sunscreen and a wide-brimmed hat when we’re outdoors.

The Southern California Facilities Expo: Five Best Reasons to Visit!

May 10, 2022 by Carol S Leave a Comment

Just a few of the exhibitors at the Southern California Facilities Expo!

Recently, the Window Works staff attended the Southern California Facilities Expo, at the Anaheim Convention Center. From the SCFE website, “The Facilities Expo provides FREE valuable learning and networking opportunities in a unique format serving the southern California region. Bringing together the facilities engineering, MRO and green building communities, Southern California Facilities Expo attracts a diverse audience of facilities managers, maintenance managers, and energy managers from a wide variety of industries including food processing, government, healthcare, manufacturing, education, wineries, utilities and others.”

Here are some images and highlights from our time at the facilities expo! By the way, we’ve written about other facilities expo’s before. See some of the other highlights here:

Asia Bautista and Kashmir Uppal, from Atlas Copco Compressors, LLC

Seeing friends

We tend to run into some of the same people at facilities conferences, whether we’re in South California, Northern California, or Modesto (Central California). Above, our fearless leader Asia meets with friend Kashmir Uppal, from Atlas Copco Compressors, LLC. Kashmir Uppal is San Francisco Bay Area · CTS Regional Sales Manager for Atlas Copco, in case you were wondering. Meeting long-lost friends is probably our favorite part of the Expo.

Seeing even more friends

We love reconnecting with friends! Don’t you? Here we are with some of our bestest buds, above. That’s Nick MacArthur, brother John MacArthur, and Bobby Slingsby from Graffiti Shield. Since Graffiti Shield is in Anaheim they didn’t have far to travel. And that beer certainly can’t hurt (more on the beer in a minute). Also pictured: Asia and Donna from Window Works!

The Giveaways and Swag!

Look at that cute little promo truck from 1-800-GOT-JUNK, above! McKendry and Affinity also did some top-notch branding with their giveaways. We love having all these reminders of our time at the Expo! They’ll have a special home in our office.

The Happy Hour

The Happy Hour, co-sponsored with Atlas Copco Compressors, LLC, was one of our favorite parts of the Expo! Yes! We had happy hour in our booth which meant we didn’t have to drive home, since we were already there! You know what we mean. But actually we were happy for more than just the Happy Hour–we’re super happy and friendly all the time.

Making new connections

Of course, making new friends is super easy when the reception is in your booth! You can see just a few of our new friends in the photo above.

Did we forget anything?

If you were there and we forgot something, or even if you just want to chat, give us a call! Window Works customer care is at 415.650.5200. Pick up your phone and enter our number! We really are very friendly, and we’ll answer your questions.

Fragment Retention Window Film: Five Reasons You Need it

April 27, 2022 by Carol S Leave a Comment

If you’re a building or facilities manager for a high rise building, you definitely need fragment retention window film. After all, safety is a top concern for most facilities managers. Here are a few reasons you need it.

Prevent glass shattering

You’ve all seen the YouTube videos where glass falls and shatters everywhere, injuring people close by and even bouncing and hurting people across streets. And those tiny shards of glass are difficult to see. So cleanup is a mess. Fragment retention window film helps to keep glass together when it breaks. Glass still breaks, but with this window film it doesn’t explode all over, as it would without the window film. 3M has an article that discusses why fragment retention window film is a good choice for schools. We think it’s an even better choice for high rise buildings!

Keep bad glass from shattering everywhere

For those unfortunate scenarios where there’s globally sourced glass (we’re talking to you, facilities manager on a budget), using the right window film keeps everything together. If you’ve acquired cheap glass, you need fragment retention window film more than ever, since cheap glass is more susceptible to spontaneous shattering. By the way if you’re a facilities manager, we’d love to connect with you at one of the expos or conferences for Facilities Managers, like this one: The Window Works Crew at the Fabulous Northern California Facilities Expo 2021 in Santa Clara.

If you have large glass windows, they will be more susceptible to stress

Tornadoes, hurricanes, and weird weather are becoming more common

We don’t have to tell you that the weather is changing. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we’ve had all sorts of heat waves, droughts, and downpours. We’ve even had the occasional tornado, if you can believe that! If you’re somewhere that has tornadoes, hurricanes, or even bomb blasts, fragment retention window film can help. When your big windows get hit by bad weather, you want your glass to stay together and not explode into a million pieces.

It’s easy to install

What is that old saw about an ounce of prevention versus a pound of cure? That applies here. The window film is your ounce of prevention. Also, since it’s easy to install (for us, that is), you don’t have to spend days, weeks, or months remodeling. Right now, you may hear from your contractor that building material is stuck on ships or impossible to get.

Size Matters

If you have large glass windows, they will be more susceptible to stress. So if you’re in a high rise, those large windowpanes are at greater risk of shattering from temperature fluctuations, especially during the spring and fall when temperatures tend to change more. For those large windows that are more at risk, use fragment retention window film, in case one of your large windows shatters. Read Bob Vila’s article about the drawbacks of thermal pane windows.

Call us for more reasons!

If you have questions, call Window Works customer care at 415.650.5200. We really are very friendly.

We work all over the greater San Francisco Bay Area, from San Jose to the East Bay to the Peninsula and Marin!

Central Valley Facility Expo: Five Best Highlights

April 6, 2022 by Carol S 1 Comment

The Hills in the Central Valley | Central Valley Facility Expo

Recently, some of us traveled to the Central Valley Facility Expo in Modesto, California. As they say on their website, the Central Valley Facility Expo “attracts a diverse audience of facilities managers, maintenance managers, and energy managers from a wide variety of industries including food processing, government, healthcare, manufacturing, education, wineries, utilities and others.” We had boatloads of fun chatting with everyone at the Expo and here are some highlights! By the way, we love visiting the facility expo, and we’ve written about it before here: the 2021 Northern California Facilities Expo (that’s the one in Santa Clara!).

The drive up and back

We choose to live in California for a reason. Or maybe for 100 or 1000 reasons! It’s a beautiful place to live, and spring could be the best time to visit! Driving over we saw green fields, which might not be green for much longer since we’re in a drought. We haven’t had much rain, so everything is already starting to turn golden. And the hills stay golden until the rainy season starts back up in the late fall.

Educational seminars

From renewable energy to creating a safe environment to LED lighting, there were seminars for everyone! We didn’t have a lot of time to attend the seminars, but we got a kick out of talking to people as they went to the seminars. Of particular interest were the seminars on emergency planning and lighting. Here’s a full list of educational talks. (Did you know that generators are vulnerable to failure because of infrequent operation?)

Asia Bautista, Kashmir Uppal of Atlas Copco and Lisa Nagel of the Facility Expo (from left to right)

Meeting people

Sometimes when people stop by, they just have a quick question, so we’re super polite and friendly to everyone. At the beginning of the first day, people really wanted to talk about heat reduction window film, since Modesto gets scorching hot in the summertime. We really enjoyed meeting the facilities coordinator, Lisa Nagle. That’s her, above.

Donna, extolling the virtues of blast retention window film

Hobnobbing at Happy Hour

We know you’re thinking that maybe hobnobbing is the same as meeting people, but hobnobbing is a little more! For one thing, there could be beer or wine involved. Speaking of which, we co-sponsored the Happy Hour with our friend Kashmir Uppal, of Atlas Copco, a manufacturer of huge air compressors. We tried to get the facilities people to put the happy hour bar into our booth, but no luck! Oh, well. There’s always next year! Some of the exhibitors have had booths at other facilities expos before, and we’re always happy to see them again! For instance, the guys at Sunbelt Rentals really seem to get around! They’re a friendly crew!

Banana Tension Grip Thingie was our favorite swag!

The swag

There was all the usual swag, such as pens, Post-it notes, hats and tons of candy (why is there always candy?). But we’re talking about the Advanced Swag(tm). You know what we’re talking about! The swag you keep forever, like the banana tension grip thingie we had to trade to get.