Detroit Window Pros provides professional commercial storefront and transom glazing in Detroit, MI for residential and commercial properties across Detroit and the inner-ring suburbs. Detroit's commercial fabric is mostly two-story brick blocks along the avenues, built between the wars with a shop below and flats or offices above. Their glazing has one thing in common, and it is the largest opportunity in the building type. Every block carries the same unopened asset.
Those storefronts were drawn with a band of transom glass above the display windows, often prism or textured, deliberately throwing daylight deep into a narrow shop before anybody had fluorescent tubes. In most surviving blocks that band was boarded, blocked or drywalled over during a remodel somewhere in the nineteen-seventies and never opened again. Very few have been opened since.
Reopening it is usually cheaper than people assume, because the structural opening is still sitting there behind the panel. The lintel is in place and the jambs are in place, so nothing structural has to be touched. What the work involves is removing a framed infill, making good, and setting a new glazed head section back into the existing opening. A permit and a day of glazing usually covers it.
For a retail tenant that changes the space more than any lighting package will. Daylight arriving above eye level reaches the back of a deep narrow shop, which is exactly the part of a storefront with only low display glass that stays dim from opening to closing, and it does it without adding a single fixture to the electrical bill. Deep and narrow is the whole building type around here.
The rest of the work is conventional and we do it conventionally. Center-set aluminum framing set on a subsill with end dams, dry-glazed gaskets or wet-glazed silicone depending on the exposure of the elevation, tempered lites everywhere the code treats the location as hazardous, and a perimeter sealed against masonry rather than to a fin. None of it is exotic, and all of it gets skipped.
In this climate the framing has to be thermally broken, and it is not a place to save money. An unbroken storefront section in a heated shop through a Detroit February runs with condensation down the mullions and onto the floor, which turns into a slip complaint, then into a stained floor, then into a maintenance contract nobody wanted. Condensation turns into a slip complaint quickly.
Entrance doors take the traffic and deserve the specification to match. Heavy-duty stiles rather than narrow ones, offset pivots or continuous gear hinges rather than butt hinges, closers sized for the wind that funnels down an avenue between two-story walls, and hardware that meets accessibility requirements for reach, force and operation. Closers get replaced when an arm adjustment would have done.
We also do the unglamorous end of the work, which is what most tenants actually need. Broken lites replaced the same day where stock allows, tempered glass ordered to a field-measured daylight opening rather than to a drawing nobody checked, and door hardware repaired rather than replaced. A block full of tenants needs a glazier who answers the phone.
Our licensed and insured team brings the right materials and equipment to every job — glass area computed per opening and printed beside the unit price, visible transmittance read off the NFRC label alongside the U-factor, insert frames that add jamb depth inside the original wood box frame, full-frame units set back to the brick reveal, loose steel angle lintels bearing on both masonry jambs, cottage-style sash proportions that lift the check rail out of the sightline — and backs the work with a written workmanship warranty. We serve Detroit and nearby communities including Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Hamtramck, Highland Park.
What We Handle
Everything our commercial storefront and transom glazing in Detroit covers
One crew, one point of contact, and the full range of commercial storefront and transom glazing work in Detroit, MI. If it is on this list we do it in house rather than handing it to a subcontractor:
- commercial storefront glass Detroit
- storefront window replacement
- transom glazing
- aluminum storefront framing
- thermally broken storefront
- center set glazing
- subsill end dams
- tempered storefront glass
- commercial entrance doors
- door closer replacement
- glass board up Detroit
- retail glazing Michigan
- prism glass transom
- storefront curtain wall
- commercial glass repair
Not sure which one describes your situation? Describe it in plain words and we will sort it out — or browse the rest of our Detroit services.
Materials, equipment and how we do commercial storefront and transom glazing
The difference between commercial storefront and transom glazing that lasts and commercial storefront and transom glazing that gets redone in three years is almost always preparation and materials, not the finish you see on day one. We work with glass area computed per opening and printed beside the unit price, visible transmittance read off the NFRC label alongside the U-factor, insert frames that add jamb depth inside the original wood box frame, full-frame units set back to the brick reveal, spec them to the job instead of to the invoice, and write the material grades into the free estimate so you know exactly what you are buying.
Every Detroit job runs the same way: site walk and measurements, written scope and fixed price, protection of the surrounding area, then the work itself with a daily clean-up. Years of window work in Detroit and the inner-ring suburbs means we have already met whatever your property is going to throw at us — awkward access, older construction, an HOA with opinions.
Where we do commercial storefront and transom glazing outside Detroit
Detroit Window Pros covers Detroit and the surrounding communities of Detroit and the inner-ring suburbs. Crews run out to the same nearby cities every week, so an out-of-town job does not mean an out-of-town price.
- Commercial Storefront and Transom Glazing in Dearborn, MI — Wayne County, population 109,976 at the 2020 census
- Commercial Storefront and Transom Glazing in Dearborn Heights, MI — Wayne County, population 63,292 at the 2020 census
- Commercial Storefront and Transom Glazing in Hamtramck, MI — Wayne County, population 28,433 at the 2020 census
- Commercial Storefront and Transom Glazing in Highland Park, MI — Wayne County, population 8,977 at the 2020 census
- Commercial Storefront and Transom Glazing in Grosse Pointe Park, MI — Wayne County, population 11,595 at the 2020 census
- Commercial Storefront and Transom Glazing in Grosse Pointe Farms, MI — Wayne County, population 10,148 at the 2020 census
Start on the Detroit Window Pros homepage for a free estimate, or call (844) 511-2320 and describe the job.
Why Detroit Chooses Detroit Window Pros
- ✓We measure the daylight opening before and after, and both numbers go on the estimate. On a thirty-inch Detroit opening an insert costs you roughly a fifth of the glass; on a wide one it costs almost nothing, and only one of those is worth full-frame money.
- ✓Visible transmittance sits on the quote next to the U-factor. The code here caps how much heat a window may lose and sets no solar heat gain ceiling at all, so glass built for a cooling climate is a poor trade in a Detroit February.
- ✓Net clear opening is measured through the sash in every sleeping room in the house, including the ones nobody asked about. If a room already meets the requirement we write the number down, say so, and leave it alone.
- ✓Glass is specified by elevation rather than by package. South and east openings get higher transmittance and higher solar gain, the few west lites get something tighter, and alley-facing openings get laminated glass for security.
The standards behind commercial storefront and transom glazing
Quality here is not a matter of opinion — it is written down. The commercial storefront and transom glazing work we do in Detroit follows published industry standards: NFRC sets the U-factor and SHGC ratings on every window label, and ENERGY STAR defines the efficiency thresholds by climate zone. If a contractor cannot tell you which standard a detail comes from, that is worth asking about before you sign.
Every commercial storefront and transom glazing project in Detroit gets the same attention, whether it is a single room or a full commercial job. We show up on schedule, keep the site clean, and stand behind the work — the estimate is free and there is no pressure.
Ready to get started? Call (844) 511-2320 for a free commercial storefront and transom glazing free estimate in Detroit, or request a quote and we'll get right back to you.