Window Delivery Inspection and Damage Claim

Purpose

The few minutes the delivery truck is at the curb are the only moment the shop has leverage over damaged or wrong-spec units. Sign the receipt clean, let the truck go, then unwrap a cracked corner on install morning, and the shop is arguing that the damage happened before it took the units with nothing but its own word. The real cost is not the glass. It is a crew standing in an open wall, a customer whose house is apart, and a reorder lead time nobody planned for.

This procedure guarantees three things: every unit is counted and looked at before the receipt is signed, every exception is written on the receipt in language specific enough to support a claim, and the damaged unit is physically quarantined so it cannot reach the truck on install morning.

Scope

Covers receiving windows and patio doors at the shop or a job site, from either a common carrier or the manufacturer's own fleet, through to the claim being opened and the schedule re-planned. Covers spec verification against the order line, because a wrong-handed casement is found in the same minute as damage and carries the same consequence.

Does not cover pre-order measurement and the egress determination, which the egress window code verification SOP owns. Does not cover in-service glass failures after installation, which run through the manufacturer's warranty and the customer walkthrough and warranty handover SOP.

Roles and responsibilities

The receiving procedure

1. Stage the receiving area before the truck is due. Set racks or A-frames on level, dry ground with room to stand units on edge, and have the purchase order printed with the unit schedule and count. Acceptance: enough rack space for the full count, glass vertical, PO in hand. Wrong looks like units laid flat on a trailer deck or leaned against a wall at a shallow angle, both of which bow frames and stress the seal. Stop rule: no staging, no offload; the truck waits or the delivery is refused. Hazard: a leaning glazed unit tips silently and lands full weight on an edge, so nobody stands downhill of a stack and units go on blocking, never on bare concrete.

2. Count against the packing list before anything is unstrapped. Read the piece count off the packing list, count the units on the truck, and reconcile line by line rather than in total. Acceptance: physical count and packing list agree, line for line. Wrong looks like counting cartons when two small units ship in one carton. Stop rule: a short count is noted on the receipt with the specific missing order line before signing, and the coordinator is called while the driver is still there. Hazard: banding is under tension and whips when cut. Cut with the strap controlled in a gloved hand, stand to the side, eye protection on.

3. Read the outside of every carton and crate for the transit signatures. Look for crushed corners, punctures, water staining, and evidence of a shifted load such as scuff bands across several cartons at the same height. Acceptance: no signature on any package. Wrong looks like a clean carton face on a crate with a fresh forklift tine mark on the back where nobody looked. Stop rule: any signature means that unit is opened and inspected now, before the driver leaves, regardless of how many are behind it. Hazard: broken glass inside a closed carton is invisible and sharp, so open cartons at the top seam with a hook blade set shallow, never by tearing with a bare hand.

4. Uncrate and inspect glass and frame at arm's length under raking light. Hold a light at a low angle across the glass and look against a dark background, then check the frame for bow, twist, corner separation and sealant squeeze-out at the glazing bead. Acceptance: no chip, no scratch, no edge crack, no corner gap, no bowed jamb, insulating glass sealed with no visible seal gap. Wrong looks like inspecting straight on in flat light, which hides a scratch that will be obvious to the customer at a low sun angle. Note the basis: this is a receiving inspection at arm's length to find defects, which is deliberately harsher than the field convention used later to judge installed glass, where the industry practice is viewing from about 10 ft, at 90 degrees to the glass, in natural daylight and not direct sunlight. Stop rule: any finding goes to step 6 as a written exception before signing. Hazard: an edge-chipped lite can break under its own handling load, so a chipped unit is set down on edge on blocking and left there, not carried.

5. Verify the spec on the label against the order line. Check size, operating style, handing, glass package and coating, grid pattern, tempered marking where the location requires safety glazing, jamb depth, and exterior color, unit by unit. Acceptance: every field matches the order line, and the tempered stamp is present on every unit the order flagged for safety glazing. Wrong looks like a matched call size and a reversed hand on a casement, which fits the opening perfectly and opens into the walkway. Stop rule: a mismatch is a supplier error, noted on the receipt and routed in step 7 like damage, never adjusted in the field. Hazard: reading a corner stamp puts your face near a glass edge, so keep the unit racked and bring the light to it rather than tilting the unit toward you.

6. Write the exceptions on the delivery receipt before signing, and photograph while the driver is present. Each exception names the unit or order line, the defect, and where it is: "unit 7, 2-1/4 in scratch, glass, lower left" beats "damaged." Acceptance: every finding written with those three elements, the driver's initials next to them, and photographs of the unit, the packaging and the trailer taken before departure. Wrong looks like writing "subject to inspection," which is a blanket phrase, not an exception, and gives a reviewer nothing to work with. Stop rule: if the driver refuses to wait, note the refusal on the receipt in those words, sign only as to piece count, and call the coordinator immediately. What the notation actually gets the shop is a dated record of condition at delivery that the other side saw and initialed; whether it shifts a legal burden is a question for the shop's own attorney, not something to assert to a driver. Hazard: photographing on a trailer deck puts you between the load and the edge; step off and shoot from the ground.

7. Route the claim to the correct lane the same business day. Two lanes, and they have different clocks. For a common carrier moving interstate, the bill of lading sets the deadline, and the Carmack Amendment at 49 USC 14706 requires the carrier's terms allow not less than 9 months from delivery to file a claim and not less than 2 years to sue after a claim is declined, so read the actual bill of lading for your date rather than assuming the minimum. For the manufacturer's own delivery fleet there is no carrier claim at all; the order terms govern, and those notice windows are usually far shorter, commonly measured in days. Acceptance: a claim or replacement order opened the same day with the receipt, photographs, packing list and invoice attached, and the reference number recorded. Wrong looks like a claim filed against a carrier that never touched the freight. Stop rule: unclear lane means the coordinator calls the supplier before the day closes rather than letting it sit.

8. Red-tag, quarantine, and re-plan before the crew is dispatched. Move the damaged or mis-specified unit physically away from the staged job, tag it with the unit line and the claim number, and update the job so the install date reflects what can actually be installed. Acceptance: the unit is not in the job's staging area, the tag is legible, and the customer has been told the same day what is going in and what is coming later. Wrong looks like a damaged unit staying with its job "in case it works," which is exactly how it reaches the opening. Stop rule: no partial install proceeds until the customer has agreed to the split visit in writing on the job record. Hazard: a red-tagged unit is still glass, so it is racked on edge in the quarantine area and not stood loose against a wall where someone moves it by hand later.

The record this produces

The receiving log carries, per delivery: date and time, carrier or fleet, driver name, PO number, packing count against physical count, and per unit line the spec check result, the inspection result, and the exception text exactly as written on the receipt. Attached: photographs of each exception, the packaging and the trailer; a scan of the signed receipt; and the claim or reorder reference with the lane used and the date opened.

It lands on the job record, not a receiving binder, because the people who need it are on that job. The install lead reads it the morning of the job to know which units are real. The coordinator reads it when the customer calls about a missing window. The owner reads it across deliveries, where the useful pattern lives: one supplier producing repeat corner damage is an account conversation, and it is only visible if the exception text was specific enough to compare across months.

Worked pass: a 15-unit whole-house order

Fifteen units on the manufacturer's own delivery truck, staged at the shop the day before install.

Step 1 passes with racks set and the PO printed. Step 2 fails. The packing list reads 15 and the truck holds 14, with the kitchen casement absent. The stop rule runs: the receiver writes the missing order line on the receipt, does not sign clear, photographs the trailer, and calls the coordinator with the driver standing there. The driver confirms it is on the next run.

Step 4 finds a 2-1/4 in scratch on unit 7. A fingernail does not catch it from either the room side or the exterior side, which places it inside the sealed insulating glass unit rather than on an exposed surface. That matters for the lane: a scratch inside the seal was there when the unit was fabricated and cannot be transit handling, so it is a supplier quality claim, and the receipt notation says which surface and why.

Step 5 catches unit 11, a casement delivered left-hand where the order line reads right-hand. Correct size, correct glass, wrong hand, and it would have opened across the deck stair. Not damage, same consequence.

Step 6 writes both exceptions with unit, defect and location, gets the driver's initials, and photographs before the truck leaves. Step 7 routes both to the supplier rather than a carrier, because this was the manufacturer's own fleet and there is no bill of lading to claim against. Step 8 tags units 7 and 11 into quarantine.

That leaves 12 of the 15 units installable, which is 80 percent of the order, and the schedule call follows from that number rather than from a feeling about it. Twelve openings is a full day for the crew, so the job proceeds as a split visit with the customer's written agreement on the job record that afternoon, and three openings come back on the return trip.

Step 2 is worth studying. The short count was the easiest thing on this delivery to catch and the only one that would have been caught anyway, at the worst possible time, with a crew on site and a wall already open.

References

1. 49 USC 14706 (Carmack Amendment) for interstate motor carriage, including the minimum periods a carrier's bill of lading must allow for filing a claim and for suit after declination; the operative deadline is the one printed in that bill of lading.
2. The supplier's own order terms and damage-notice window, which govern entirely when the delivery arrives on a manufacturer or dealer fleet rather than a common carrier.
3. Industry field practice for judging installed glass, viewed from about 10 ft, at 90 degrees, in natural daylight and not direct sunlight, which is a different and more forgiving basis than the receiving inspection in step 4.
4. See related: the customer walkthrough and warranty handover SOP, which owns post-installation glass and seal claims.