One thing first, because it decides how to read everything below. Which of these documents a given project needs, and whether a permit is required at all, is set by the building department with jurisdiction over the address. That office is the authority, not this page and not us. What follows is what each document is, where its numbers come from, and how they go wrong, so that the packet is complete before anyone asks for it.
The packet, document by document
The certified rating label, and the two labels that are not the same
A replacement window carries two different labels, and they do different jobs.
The temporary label is the sticker on the glass at delivery. It carries the rated U-factor and solar heat gain coefficient, and usually visible transmittance and air leakage, for that specific product line and option package. It is the document a field inspector reads, and it is the one that most often goes in the bin before the inspection.
The permanent label is etched or affixed to the spacer or the frame. It identifies the manufacturer and the certification and it survives the temporary sticker, the install and the first wash.
Behind both sits the certification listing itself: the same ratings, published against a certified product number for the manufacturer’s line and its option set. That listing is what makes the sticker checkable by somebody who was not there.
The point that catches people out is that ratings belong to a configuration, not to a brand. Change the glass package, the grid pattern, the frame depth or the operator style and the numbers change with them. A quote that says "low-E double pane" has not identified a rated product. A quote that names the line, the series, the glass package and the option set has. ENERGY STAR certification, where it applies, sits on top of those numbers as a separate mark for a climate zone. It is not a substitute for them.
The egress schedule, opening by opening
Sleeping rooms need an emergency escape and rescue opening, and the residential code sets the figures. The opening needs 5.7 square feet of net clear opening, or 5.0 square feet where it is at grade-floor level. It also needs a minimum clear height of 24 inches and a minimum clear width of 20 inches, with a sill no more than 44 inches above the finished floor.
Net clear is measured through the opened sash, after the frame and the sash have taken their share of the hole. It is not the rough opening and it is not the glass size, which is why a unit that drops neatly into an existing opening can still miss. Manufacturers publish net clear figures per size and per operator style; use theirs rather than arithmetic.
The schedule is one row per bedroom opening: room, unit type and size, net clear width, net clear height, net clear area, sill height above finished floor. The failure mode it exists to catch is a like-for-like replacement in a room that complied with the old window and does not with the new one. That happens because the new frame is deeper or the operator style changed.
Safety-glazing marks
Safety glazing is required in hazardous locations. Those include glass in doors, glass adjacent to doors, and glass near stairs and landings. They also include glass at wet areas such as tubs and showers where the bottom edge is less than 60 inches above the standing surface.
The proof is a permanent mark on the glass itself naming the manufacturer, the standard it was tested to, and the type: tempered or laminated. A reviewer looks for the mark on the drawing; an inspector looks for it in the glass. If the only evidence is on a peel-off sticker, that is a problem waiting for the sticker to come off.
The practical consequence is scheduling, not paperwork: tempered glass is cut to size before it is heat-treated. So a lite (a pane of glass) that should have been safety glazing is a re-order and a second freight window, not a site fix. Safety-glazing locations get identified at the measure visit, before the order.
The structural performance line
Fenestration products are tested to the North American Fenestration Standard. The rating gives a performance class and a performance grade (a design pressure) together with water penetration resistance and air infiltration. It comes from the manufacturer’s test report or certification label rather than from a brochure adjective.
On a straightforward single-family replacement nobody usually asks for it. On multi-family work, on a tall or exposed elevation, or wherever a designer has set a wind pressure for the building, this is the line that has to be shown and matched.
The manufacturer’s installation instructions
These are part of the approved documents, not background reading. A product is rated as installed the way its manufacturer specifies: fastener type, spacing and edge distance; shim and support locations; sealant type, where it goes, and (just as important) where it deliberately does not. A bead in the wrong place blocks a drainage path.
The warranty runs on the same instructions. An installation that departs from them can pass a visual inspection and still sit outside the manufacturer’s coverage. That problem only shows up years later, when a claim is made.
The mistake that costs an inspection
Peeling the temporary labels before the inspection. It is by some distance the most common one, and it is entirely avoidable. Those labels are how an inspector matches the installed product to the approved numbers, opening by opening. Once they are gone, the alternative is producing paperwork per opening and hoping the configurations match.
The near neighbour of that mistake is mixing option packages across a job (one elevation ordered with a different glass package for good reasons) without updating the schedule. Then the labels on the glass and the documents in the folder disagree. Both are administrative failures that cost site time.
What we hand over with the scope
- A window schedule keyed to the elevations, one row per opening
- The certified rating data for each product configuration, as ordered
- Net clear opening figures for every sleeping-room unit
- Safety-glazing locations identified before the order, so the right lites are specified tempered or laminated
- The manufacturer’s installation instructions for the line being fitted
- The manufacturer’s own warranty document, unaltered and attributed to them
