Glass guides, costs and regulations
Straight answers to the questions we get asked most, written by the people who cut and fit the glass rather than by a marketing department.
Most glass buying happens once every fifteen or twenty years, so almost nobody comes to it as an expert. These guides exist because the same handful of questions come up at survey after survey, and because the answers available online are usually either a sales pitch or a national aggregator quoting prices that bear no relation to what a real workshop charges.
Nothing here is gated and none of it requires you to buy from us. If it helps you brief a different company more clearly, that is still a better outcome than a job that goes wrong.
Understanding what you are buying
Types of glass explained is the place to start if the terminology is unfamiliar. Annealed, toughened, laminated, toughened-laminated, low iron, tinted, obscure and mirror: what each one is, how it behaves when it breaks, and which jobs it belongs in. If you only read one guide, read this one, because the specification decision drives both the safety and most of the cost.
The short version: toughened glass is around five times stronger than ordinary float and breaks into blunt granules instead of shards, which is why it is used in balustrades, screens and doors. Laminated glass holds together on an interlayer when it breaks, which is why anything overhead or walked on has to be laminated rather than merely toughened. Low iron glass has had the green tint removed and matters enormously on white and pale colours and not at all on dark ones.
Regulations and compliance
Glass balustrade building regulations covers Document K, which is the part of the Building Regulations that governs guarding. It explains when a barrier is required at all, the heights that apply to domestic and commercial situations, the horizontal line loads the glass has to resist, and the 100mm sphere rule that stops a small child passing through a gap.
This is the guide worth reading before you commission anything, not after. A balustrade that looks beautiful and fails building control has to come out, and the cost of that falls on whoever specified it.
Costs
How much do glass splashbacks cost sets out real UK price bands and, more usefully, explains what moves the number. Size matters less than people expect. Cutouts, mitres, returns, colour choice and whether the wall is square matter a great deal more.
We publish ranges rather than fixed prices, because a headline figure that changes after survey is worse than no figure at all.
Practical how-to
How to measure for a shower enclosure walks through doing it properly, including the part almost everyone gets wrong: assuming the walls are square and plumb. They very rarely are, and a panel cut to a single measurement taken at one height will not fit. The guide covers where to measure, how many readings to take, what tolerance to allow and when to stop measuring and let somebody template it instead.
Repair and retrofit decisions
Secondary glazing versus double glazing is the guide for period and listed property owners. It compares the two honestly on noise, heat, cost, appearance and, critically, on whether you will get consent to install it. Secondary glazing wins on acoustic performance and on conservation acceptability. Double glazing wins on thermal performance and on not having a second frame to open. Which is right depends on your building and often on your conservation officer.
Dealing with misted double glazing answers the most common repair question we get. Misting between the panes means the perimeter seal on the sealed unit has failed and moisture is inside the cavity. The guide explains why the various drilling and drying services are usually a false economy, what replacing just the sealed unit involves as against replacing the whole window, and how to tell which you actually need.
Still not sure?
These guides cover the ground but they cannot see your wall, your stairwell or your kitchen. If you have read the relevant one and still are not certain, that is normal, and it is what the free survey is for. Send a photo and a rough description and we will tell you what the job needs, including when the honest answer is that you do not need us.
Got a question these do not answer?
Ask us. We would rather explain it properly than have you guess.