Safety and security
Safety glass
Safety glass is glass that, when broken, reduces the risk of injury to occupants. The relevant UK standard is BS 6262-4, which sets out the locations where safety glass must be used:
- doors and side-panels
- low-level glazing (below 800 mm in walls, 1500 mm in doors and side-panels)
- any glazing where there is a risk of human impact.
Types of safety glass
Toughened glass
Made by heating annealed glass to a temperature near its softening point and then rapidly cooling it. The result is glass that is 4 to 5 times stronger than annealed glass and that, when broken, fragments into small, relatively harmless granules.
Laminated glass
Composed of two or more panes of glass bonded together by a tough plastic interlayer (typically PVB). When broken, the fragments remain bonded to the interlayer, maintaining the integrity of the pane. Laminated glass also provides protection against UV radiation and improved acoustic performance.
Heat soak testing
Toughened glass can suffer from spontaneous breakage caused by nickel sulphide inclusions. Heat soak testing in accordance with BS EN 14179 reduces this risk by deliberately causing affected panes to fail in a controlled environment before the glass is installed.
Our facility includes three heat soak testing ovens, enabling us to offer fully heat soak tested toughened glass.
Security glass
Security glass is designed to delay an intruder or to resist deliberate attacks. It is classified by the resistance class against various forms of attack:
- BS EN 356 — manual attack (P1A to P8B)
- BS EN 1063 — ballistic attack (BR1 to BR7)
- BS EN 13541 — explosion-resistant (ER1 to ER4)