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We have an 8'x14' patio door at a house we are doing. Dumpster is gone. We are going to reframe for windows.

The door is has a metal frame and it is in 3 panels - made in 60s. Breaking it outside would be hard to clean up. Just seeing what unique/cheap ways people would come up with to get rid of door which is a TON of glass.

Edit: Tempered glass? I don't know. It does not have any markings that I can see and not sure if everything was marked in the 60s. However the patio door was in a very high traffic patio that had a pool close and basketball hoop. I would guess it is but purely a guess.

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  • Do you still have the door frames, i.e. The other bits that someone else would need to reuse this in a building?
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Mar 25, 2019 at 6:49
  • @Harper - yes but damaged. The glass is the only thing of value - and that has very low value unless you want to put in work.
    – DMoore
    Mar 25, 2019 at 7:01
  • Load them into the back of the truck and take them straight to the tip / recycling yard...
    – Solar Mike
    Mar 25, 2019 at 7:19
  • Is the glass tempered?
    – Kris
    Mar 25, 2019 at 12:30
  • @Kris - will update question because that is something I should add.
    – DMoore
    Mar 25, 2019 at 17:23

3 Answers 3

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I got rid of my old sliding glass doors by putting them on Craigslist for free. People called interested in using them as glass panels on sheds, or green houses where insulation value was of no interest, and they didn't want to invest in something new.

Gone in a few days.

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  • This works. I got 35 sealed units this way for a greenhouse.
    – Sherwood Botsford
    Mar 28, 2019 at 1:52
  • This is the right answer - any window or door that doesn't have broken glass sections will be sold or at least taken for free. I got $100 for my door and didn't have to clean up glass for 3 hours. Also it is just good practice to not destroy stuff that others want to use. I am a big believer in recycling materials and if I can't burn it I try to make sure it doesn't hit a landfill (drywall is only big issue to get rid of).
    – DMoore
    Jul 30, 2020 at 18:57
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You could get one of those large low cost plastic material tarps. Fold it out double thickness on the ground outside. Then lay the glass panels down flat on the tarp to break them up. You can successively break larger pieces down to smaller pieces that you can dispose of in the trash bin. After you have gathered up all the larger pieces for disposal you can use the tarp to bundle all the small shards and slivers of glass for disposal.

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One option is to remove the metal frames from the glass doors so the plate glass free of anything. The idea would then be to use standard glass cutting techniques to break it down into easier to handle and dispose of sizes.

you would place the glass carefully on a flat surface (i.e. plywood on some saw horses) you can use a straight edge and a glass cutters scoring tool to make a score across the piece. Then the glass panel can be slid over so that the glass overhangs the plywood with the score mark right at the edge of the plywood. A quick rap on the glass at the overhang should allow it to break right along the score line.

You would repeat this process to get to reasonably sized pieces. There could be some issues with this process because old glass can sometimes not respond to scoring and breaking along the line nearly as well as new glass.

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  • Looking like something like this is in the cards. I much rather the bull in a china shop approach to demo. Also I wouldn't trust anyone working for me doing this without getting stitches so I will end up doing it.
    – DMoore
    Mar 25, 2019 at 7:04
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    A full-pane glass door should be tempered - which means that any attempt at cutting it will result in a pile of small shards within seconds. Maybe something made in the 60's wouldn't conform to this rule though ...
    – brhans
    Mar 25, 2019 at 13:23
  • @brhans - it should be. That is another thing that has gone through my mind just thinking about moving it to a pickup service. It is a good 200 feet from the back of the house to the curb. If it is not tempered the guys carrying it could get cut. If it is we could be cleaning up shards of glass on pavers, concrete and grass for 8 hours.
    – DMoore
    Mar 25, 2019 at 17:27

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