Vandals were scratching their “tags” (graffiti) into glass shopfronts and bus/train windows in the knowledge that this type of damage was permanent and the only way to get rid of it was to replace the glass panel.
Chicago Glass spent 3 years developing a process for addressing the problem. The idea of hazing out the tags to leave a frosted glass appearance and developing a new type of window film with thick adhesive that wicks into the frosting to leave a clear glass finish was patented.
For the next 3 years, Chicago Glass were working at most of the bus garages in London either treating and/or filming the damaged glass and operating a maintenance programme with them.
Chicago Glass expanded its business to filming all of the new trains, tubes, and buses working in London. As the graffiti problem receded Chicago Glass needed to find new work for their technicians and developed a new productive system for polishing out scratches without any distortion. Whilst the quality was good the productivity was low, compared to today. Productivity has now grown to the point we achieve in a day a workload that used to take a week, but with the same high quality of workmanship.
Chicago Glass is today the largest glass restoration company in the UK. Our technicians work across England and internationally, fully supported by a dedicated customer service team at the Company’s Head Office in Rochester, Kent.
We have solutions for most of the on-site problems clients have with glass including repairing chips and cracks, bevelling glass and refinishing PVB interlayer edge profiles, removing grinder or weld spatter, as well as removing contaminants such as aluminium or limescale stains, and polishing out scratches as deep as etched graffiti which is where it all started.
Chicago Glass also introduced an Architectural Spraying Division specialising in repairing metal frames and cladding on buildings whose powder-coated and anodised finish which have been damaged on-site.
In October 2020, Chicago Glass became an Employee-Owned Company.
Graffiti vandalism was introduced into the UK from USA, with Chicago being considered the hot bed of graffiti. This is why the business is named Chicago Glass (UK) Ltd.
“I believe the success of Chicago Glass is down to our innovating solutions to long-standing problems on-site with glass and metal finishes, having a very large team of technicians, more than half of who have been with us for more than 10 years, enabling us to react very quickly and recognising that quality of the finished product is the most important aspect of the business.”
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We hold CHAS Elite, along with being members of the Glass and Glazing Federation (GGF).