Shower Screens: Glass Safety

Have you considered glass safety before choosing your shower screen?

Most people have broken glass at some time. It may be a drinking glass, a mirror, a baking dish or even your car windscreen.

 Have you noticed that not all broken glass looks the same?

The foundation product for manufactured glass is annealed or ‘float’ glass, This topic is discussed in a previous post frameless shower screens- is glass just glass. Frameless shower screens cannot be made using float glass, as it’s very sharp when broken.

The Australian Standards set out criteria for shower screen glass safety. The most suitable method is heat toughening. The glass is fired at approximately 600C. Our shower screen glass is significantly stronger than float glass because its toughened. It is also much safer than float glass, because heat toughened glass breaks into cube like pieces.

The two major contributing factors that have a direct result on the resilience of toughened glass are;

Contaminants inclusion

These ‘inclusions’ can have varying consequences on the end performance of the glass. Nickel Sulphide inclusion can reveal itself in glass during toughening or after installation. Accurate batching is important to reduce contaminants as much as possible. Contaminate inclusion can cause failure of toughened glass.

Inaccurate Toughening

Consistent furnace temperature is crucial to the toughening process.  It’s important that ‘quenching’ is even and suitably rapid. Inaccurate toughening can result in weaker glass and potentially lay complex stresses within the glass that can lead to glass failure. Inaccurate toughening is a common fault in some imported frameless shower screens.

Our opinion

Accurately toughened glass is suitably safe for use in the manufacture of frameless shower screens. Therefore, it is important to know the quality and consistency of the glass used in your home.. Ask questions about the reliability of your glass manufacturer. Australian manufacturers are among the best in the world.