A glazing bid built off the elevations and the window schedule gets you the framing, the glass and most of the anchors — the part every bidder prices the same careful way. What it doesn't get you is the edges: a hardware split that changes item by item across the same set of entrance doors, delegated engineering that prices the wall more than the glass spec does, and interface flashings at every trade this scope touches, each one needing a name attached to it before it becomes a leak nobody built.
This is a working list of where those edges sit, built from what actually shows up across real Canadian ICI tenders. Not a systems catalogue — a list of the specific boundary questions worth answering before the number leaves the office.
What's reliably yours
- Aluminum entrances and storefront — framing, doors, glass and in-system hardware per the elevations. Extract door hardware ownership specifically; it's split between this trade and Division 8 hardware on most sets, and rarely split the same way twice.
- Curtain wall complete — system, anchors, glass, spandrels, in-system flashings and delegated engineering per the elevations and details. The engineering line is real cost, not a formality tacked onto the submittal.
- Aluminum windows — window types, sizes and performance classes per the schedule, each performance class carrying its own cost, not just its own product code.
- Interior glazing — borrowed lites, glass in interior aluminum screens, glass in hollow metal frames where assigned here, and mirrors.
- Window film — solar and decorative films, with extents taken from the film schedule or the elevations, whichever the tender actually uses to define them.
Where the fight actually happens
Glass railings and guards
Structural glass guard systems carry their own engineering duty, and that duty is often shared with the misc metals trade rather than sitting entirely inside glazing. Extract who carries the engineering separately from who supplies and installs the glass and hardware — the two aren't automatically the same party, and an unassigned engineering line on a structural glass system is not a small number to discover late.
Sloped glazing and skylights
Extract the system with the specific detail of who flashes the curb. A sloped glazing or skylight curb sits exactly on the line between roofing and glazing, and both trades have a reasonable argument for why it's the other one's flashing to run. The drawings rarely settle it on their own.
Perimeter fire containment
Safing at curtain wall slab edges is claimed by both sides of this boundary about as often as it's disclaimed by both. Glazing packages sometimes treat it as part of system continuity since it touches the anchors and mullions; firestopping packages sometimes treat it as outside their scope since it's inside someone else's wall. Extract who actually carries it before pricing — it's real linear footage around the entire building perimeter, at every floor slab.
The other half: what isn't yours, even when it looks close
- HM and wood doors — the doors-and-hardware trade's own scope. Glass installed in those doors gets priced according to whatever assignment the documents actually state, not assumed as this trade's default just because it's glass.
- Automatic operators — the specialty-doors trade's where it's split out, but the door prep and power coordination for those operators still land here. Extract exactly where that line is drawn rather than treating the whole assembly as excluded.
- Panel and cladding systems — the cladding trade's scope. Every interface flashing between cladding and glazing needs a named owner, because an unassigned interface is where building envelopes actually fail.
Four things that hide outside the glazing schedule
- Delegated design and performance requirements. Wind loads, deflection limits and thermal performance values pulled from the building's energy model are what actually price the wall — not the glass type printed next to the elevation.
- Field testing and mockups. ASTM E1105 field water testing, performance mockups, and — the part that costs real money — who pays when a mockup or field test fails and the system needs remediation and a retest.
- Glass lead times and substitutions. Coated glass and insulated glass unit lead times, bird-friendly frit requirements on some institutional work, and how tightly the spec restricts substitutions once a submittal is underway.
- Warranty terms. IGU seal warranties, finish warranties, and the gap that opens up between a whole-system warranty and a component warranty when different manufacturers supply different parts of the same wall.
Who you're actually sharing the wall with
| Trade | What to reconcile before you price |
|---|---|
| Cladding trade | Interface flashings and air barrier continuity at every jamb, head and sill — the boundary that fails first if it's left unassigned. |
| Specialty doors trade | Operator mounting and power coordination on auto-operated entrances. |
| Electrical trade | Power for operators and motorized shades within glazing systems. |
| General contractor | Hoisting and access, enclosure milestones, and protection of finished glazing during adjacent trade work. |
The pass that catches most of this
Read the elevations and window schedule for the product, then read the hardware section and the structural general notes specifically for delegated design values and the entrance hardware split before pricing a single opening. The elevations tell you what to install; the boundary clauses scattered across a dozen other sections tell you what the wall is actually going to cost once every interface has a name attached to it.