OK, I know. I'm waaaay off topic here, but the collective knowledge, wisdom and experiences that reside here at TKP might be able to help me out here. I'm trying to understand something that has happened recently to my two vehicles. 2015 Nissan Frontier and a 2023 Buick Encore. Overnight, some of the trim suddenly looks like it is melting. Both vehicles are parked similarly beside the house, as we've parked for most of 15 years without problems.
The interweb informs me that this is due to reflection from low-E glass windows on my house. Whaaaa? My local body shop had never seen anything like it, and the local glass business had never heard of anything like that. Only thing recommended is tinting the windows, but on the outside to stop the sun's reflection. ?
The Buick, being new, we'll deal with. The truck I can live with ($700 for a cosmetic blemish). Either way, we gotta do something to keep this from happening.
Sooo, common factor here is cheap plastic trim on the vehicles, and relative proximityin the parking.
Has this happened to you? What do you know, recommend or surmise? Thanks in advance.
My car is melting, for real...HELP!
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Did you recently change out the windows on your house that would support that claim?
Curious if you could post some photos? This is interesting.
You see this more commonly on vinyl siding on houses, but yes, window-reflected sunlight can heat up plastics to the point that they melt. If you've had any trees trimmed or storm-damaged this year (or if you took your window screens off for pressure-washing, etc.) that might explain how this just happened for the first time.
If allowed in your neighborhood, [jerk-off motion for HOAs everywhere] maybe look into installing a metal carport/shelter to park under.
Not the first time I've heard where building windows are melting a car. Most famously, it happened in London with a building about 10 years ago destroying cars parked below it on the street shortly after it was completed.
However, I did come across this article from Boston a few years ago, which probably is what you saw as well....
wow, this is pretty wild! I haven't heard of this before. It would be interesting to do a time-laps of your cars parked there and see if you can find the light bouncing off the windows - maybe change where you park or put up a shade cloth to diffuse the light?
And here's a 5 minute news story from WRAL in Raleigh from about 10 years ago describing this very thing....
https://www.wral.com/glare-from-energy-efficient-windows-can-melt-siding...
Do you have screens on the windows? If not can you add them. They might diffuse the light enough to prevent further melting.
Make sure the screens are metal, not plastic.
Cover your windows with large VT decals to prevent the sunlight from reflecting? just kidding - that is wild.
Depending on the type of windows the cheapest option may be to add pop in screens on the windows to break up some of the sunlight? Or plant shade trees, but that takes time to grow. Everything else (awnings, car covers, etc.) would seem expensive or a hassle.
Thanks to all so far. Yes, trees were removed that blocked the morning sun, and may account for something. The new car was the first to show damage, followed a few weeks until the Frontier succomed day before yesterday. It seems that shading the windows, only two of them, would solve the problem, but me thinking it would and it actually doing it are two different things.
And no, while we changed out a busted window 4 years ago that is maybe a culprit, we haven't since.
Still, cheap plastic trim is looking more and more like the problem, but who do I go after? Not a litigious sort of guy, I still wonder here. Is this my fault?
It would certainly be framed that way by anyone you might try to sue over the issue.
It shouldn't be the low E coating itself as that is designed to reflect UV light in the summer when the angle of the sun is high and allow UV light into the home in the winter when the sun angle is low.
per the articles I've seen, its the low E coating, that is designed to reflect sunlight combined with the concave shape of these windows that basically has them acting like big heat rays under direct sunlight. Numerous documented cases around the globe where these windows have been identified as the primary culprits of damaged cars and siding of neighboring houses as well as having started multiple fires when the light is reflected on cedar roofing shingles.
The problem is, even though this has been known for a decade now, there is no decision made on who is responsible when there is an issue. The window companies are denying responsibility as they are just following modern regulations, and the construction firms are denying responsibility because there are no other options right now for windows. And insurance companies have been denying claims when it happens. The only suggestions that I've seen is to either replace the windows with non low-E windows, which isn't to code, or to install something to block direct sunlight from hitting them, as 'its less expensive than dealing with the lawsuit should it damage anything associated with your neighbor'.
Again Low E Coatings don't reflect 'sunlight'. They reflect UV rays, or allow UV rays to pass through based on the sun angle. These coatings are on the #2 or #3 surface of a double pane window (the interior of the outer pane or the exterior if the inner pane). I'm saying that it's likely not the UV, but just the simple reflection of the sunlight off the outer pane of glass (which doesn't have any coatings whatsoever on it.)
Either way, it's the low E glass that is the problem regardless of why, right? 1st world problem, for sure, but I'm not eager to do nothing and just hope things don't get worse. It is the paucity of information, and the helpless reactions from the body shop and the glass shop that is vexing me.
My only direction at this point is to interrupt the glare somehow, and the most likely way to effect that is to put some kind of anti-reflective film on the two windows and hope for the best. For now, I'm parking differently and researching exterior film products, and wondering who or what in the Cosmos I have offended.
I would stop short of throwing "fault" around. There are tons of variables, such as which direction a window faces, time of year, trees or anything else that might block, potentially even the angle and type of glass on your car, whether more than one window reflection might hit it, color of the car (dark colored cars heat up on the inside more than light colored cars, etc. etc.
And for a lawsuit, you'd likely have to have evidence the manufacturer knew it was a problem and didn't include a warning. Also, there's probably manufacturer info that came with the window that nobody likely ever reads, maybe it has a warning.
Best bet is to potentially try planting something that would block the light.
Nah, can't plant anything there, and not really looking to sue anybody. I do believe the car manufacturers will be aware since it's happened enough to be on the 'net, but not too sure what my dealership will do when I bring that Buick to them. The Frontier will just have to go without since I got it from CarMax and it happened 4 days after my 90 day warrantee ran out.
Both vehicles are dark...the pickup is black and the Buick is Cinnabar (a reddish maroon), and both instances of damage are on outside trim.
Sorry, I didn't sleep at a Holliday Inn Express last night.
This is where the MIB shows up and flash bulbs you and tells you swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.
Thanks everyone. I will update if and when I figure out what to do. Now, anybody know anything about anti-reflective exterior film?
OK, we've all moved on, but here's my solution. Whether it solves the problem or not, we'll see.
I got some perforated black vinyl stick on exterior window film and cut it to fit. Less than $50 to cover both possible offending windows, and not hard at all. From the inside, it cuts some light, but overall looks like a heavy screen, while definitely stopping reflection. Outside, it just looks darker, but not ugly (except for my poor installation job). I still am not looking forward to dealing with my Buick dealership, and luckily, the trim that is affected really has minor damage, especially compared to my pickup truck, but I'll live if they blow me off.
And as expected, the Buick dealership blew me off. No further damage at this point, but the sun's angle has changed a lot since late fall. Oh well, if you live, you learn, huh? Cutting those cedars cost me more than just the woodman's fee. On the upside, we do have a lot more sunlight in the side yard now for my herb garden.
As a thermal engineer dealing largely with radiative heat, this is really fascinating. Has the black vinyl been absorbing an appreciable amount of heat and transferring it into your house?
Well, the black vinyl is still mostly holes, but I've not noticed a heat transfer. As I said, the sun has changed angles since my cars melted, but it'll be interesting to see what it does in the summer.
I have low-e windows on my house. At certain points of the year the sun reflects off my daughter's window and burns a spot in my front yard. You can see the line track across the lawn as the sun moves.
My neighbors in front just cleared out a bunch of trees. I have been curious to see if more windows start doing the same thing.
We had this happen to us. Our neighborhood has a set of smaller houses with detached garages. Some of these have lofts above garage with windows. One them happens to be in position over our back yard. The reflection from the windows fried a big patch of our yard the first summer we lived here. We've since put in a patio where the window reflection torched the yard, but you can't sit on that area of the patio when the sunbeam from the windows is moving along it. It's pretty crazy how much hotter it is in the beam of the reflection compared to a few inches over outside of the beam.
There is no doubt that the removal of a bunch of cedars is what initiated this problem. The damage is done, but I will hope to stem it with the window covering.
This deserves a documentary. It's so crazy
I'd be happy to be interviewed, but I suspect that there are far more destructive instances out there. The fact that it seems that astroturf damage may be what led to the vinyl shade solution leads me to believe that more money was involved than my piddley cosmetic damage.
Again, thanks one and all for your interest and suggestions. If the shading doesn't work, I'll likely not know for a while, but if it doesn't, I'll let you know.