How do I care for my table, birdbath etc.?
1) Don’t change temperature on it quickly. This is normal soda-lime glass, not borosilicate (like Corning’s Pyrex). It breaks when you try to change temperature on it rapidly. Don’t put a something hot off the fire directly on the glass. If it is hotter or colder than you would hold in your hand, use a hot pad or trivet before setting an object on the glass.
Glass heats up in the sun. Spraying cold water on a table or filling a birdbath that has been sitting in the sun all day might cause cracks, although no one has reported any. Let the glass cool down in the shade before turning the hose on it.
2 ) For grouted pieces apply penetrating grout sealer every year or two to keep your table stain resistant. I use Home Depot’s TileLab brand but there are probably many others just as good: Pour or dab sealer on the grout with a lint free cloth. Be sure to wipe it off the glass within 5 minutes to keep your glass shiny. Don’t allow it to dry on the glass because it’s difficult to remove. Repeat the process a second time about half an hour later.
3) Bring it in or keep it dry in freezing weather if you don’t ever want to re-grout.
You are taking a chance on the grout crumbling due to freeze-thaw cycles. I use frost-resistant grout but no one makes guaranteed frost-proof grout. My first table has been out in all weather for over 25 years (photo of it with 6 inches of snow). I finally re-grouted bits of it at 22 years.
Re-grouting isn’t a difficult process: clean the table. Take a small screwdriver and carefully pry out only the loose grout. Remove the debris with a brush or shop vac. Mix some sanded, polymer-modified, cement based grout of the same color (Home Depot Custom Brand Delorian Gray is my usual) and pat the grout into the spaces. Then smooth it with your finger. Be sure to get the grout off the top of the glass before it dries.
Keep the grout moist by covering it with plastic or misting it with water occasionally for 3 days (grout is a curing rather than a drying process so it needs a bit of moisture to become hard). Seal the grout, as above, after 2 weeks.
Birdbaths and other pieces that don’t have anything that will trap ice are probably OK all year but you do risk breakage if water freezes in them and can’t easily move up as it expands.
Solar lanterns can be treated like the tables. Mine has been outside for years. They use 3 rechargeable NiCad batteries that need to be changed every couple of years because rechargeables only cycle 500 to 1,000 times.
Fountains need to come in for the winter, mainly because the lithium batteries will be damaged if they try to charge while frozen and the plastic of the pump will break in the freeze-thaw.
What if one of the glass pieces in the appliqué breaks?
The two layers are laminated together like your car windshield so they are stronger than the original sheet of glass to begin with.
Cracking one of the upper pieces does not harm the table: the upper layer is already in pieces of glass anyway. Most people won’t notice the crack. If it really bothers you, it can be replaced by chipping out the surrounding grout with a small screwdriver. Then the broken piece is broken into smaller pieces with a glass cutter. Undermine the glue with a thin piece of metal (I use bent Morton Strong Line) and cut the rest of the way through the glue with strong dental floss. A new piece of matching glass is cut and glued in. After two weeks it can be re-grouted and then re-sealed. Time consuming but it can be done. Instead you can just put a UV-curing glue in the crack (it’s sold to mend car windshields) to seal the crack and keep it from becoming more visible or growing longer.
Shattering the tempered supporting glass is much harder to deal with (I’ve only had it happen to one client that I know of — see the note on using a hot-pad above). The glue is really strong and prevents easily peeling off the design glass. If there is a metal rim, you can break the grout around the edge of the table so the glass can be removed from the rim as one piece. Then you can put a new piece of glass in the frame (see the DIY page for sources). Glue the original two layer top to the new glass and regrout the now slightly higher edge.
What do you charge for a table?
Pricing has lots of variables. I no longer do custom work but I’ll be glad to teach you how to do it yourself. You are welcome to come see what’s available during one of our studio tours or by appointment.