Home Inspections, From the Expert



Safety for the Senior Homeowner…Safety Glass



‘Safety Glass’, what is it? Generally speaking, there are two general types of safety glass. In the home, the more common type is known as ‘tempered safety glass’. For now, we’ll talk about the dangers of not having tempered glass in the appropriate locations around your home. In addition, I will provide a fairly complete list of areas where safety glass is required by modern Codes.

What is tempered glass? Simply put, it is glass that is manufactured via a heating and cooling process that creates a surface stress that causes the glass pane to shatter when scratched, nicked, perforated, or deformed excessively. Any of these actions causes the sheet of glass to break into thousands of small pieces. These smaller pieces do not have the size and weight of a larger piece of glass.

Large shards of conventional glass are capable of slicing arteries and puncturing vital organs. Conversely, when tempered glass shatters, the relatively small pieces (about the size of pebbles) may nick or scratch the skin, causing relatively little injury if any.

Codes require tempered glass in locations around the home where there is the greatest likelihood of encountering what is known as a ‘human impact load’. These are areas where our young and elderly are most likely to trip and fall into a pane of glass.

Tempered glass is 5 to 10 times stronger that conventional non-tempered glass. And… it won’t slice your grandchildren to pieces.

Pretty cool stuff, huh?

Generally speaking (there are some exceptions), tempered glass is required if the lower edge of a pane of glass is located less than five feet (5′), measured vertically, from the floor/walking surface and located in the following locations:

In a door

Within 24 inches of a door opening

In a wall and enclosures/doors adjacent to a shower

In a wall and enclosures/doors adjacent to a bathtub

Within five feet of a stairwell or on walls at the stairway landings

Within five feet of a swimming pool, hot tub or spa

In addition, if a single pane of glass is large enough where it is greater than nine (9) square feet in area and the lower edge of the glass is 36 above the floor, and the window is <36 inches horizontal distance from a walking surface, it is required to be tempered glass.

All glass in railings/guardrails is required to be tempered safety glass.

Sliding glass doors and the adjacent stationary glass door that do not incorporate tempered safety glass have severely injured many over the years.

For a complete list of areas in the home that require safety glass and for a list of exceptions, please consult the latest edition of the International Residential Code and/or contact the City of San Antonio.

Tempered safety glass will have a 'mark' at one of the corners of the glass pane that states that it is Tempered Safety Glass.

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