You may have heard about tempered glass and its qualities. Tempered or safety glass is shatterproof and more robust than regular glass, making it ideal for use in shower doors, railings, and windows. Although all glass panels may seem the same, different types of glasses have varying properties.
If you are confused about how to identify a genuine tempered glass panel, do not worry. Having more knowledge about tempered glass and using these easy tricks you can use to identify safety glass.
What is tempered glass?
Tempered or safety glass is hardened, making it up to four or five times stronger than regular glass. Tempered is also known as safety glass because it does not shatter when broken. Manufacturers harden glass using heat where pre-cut glass is heated and cooled.
In a tempering furnace, the glass is heated to 1200F and then quenched or cooled rapidly. As a result, the middle of the glass cools first, and the sides contract, outside compresses, resulting in a robust glass.
Due to the strength of tempered glass, it has multiple uses;
- Manufacturers use tempered glass in protective screens of gadgets such as mobile phones
- Car windows and screens constitute tempered glass
- Due to its safety properties, tempered glass makes shower enclosures, doors, and tabletops
- Tempered glass can withstand extreme temperatures without cracking, making it ideal for microwave and oven dishes.
- In addition, there are many commercial uses for tempered glass, including phone booths, escalators, and solar panels.
Tips for identifying genuine tempered glass
- Feel the edges of the glass panel
Feeling the glass edges is one of the simplest ways to tell tempered glass from ordinary glass because, unlike regular glass, tempered glass has a smooth edge. Safety glass undergoes additional processing during heating and sandblasting resulting in more even edges.
Simply running your fingers on the glass edges will help you identify regular glass with a rough edge or tempered glass with a smooth edge.
- Examine the glass for imperfections
As discussed above, tempered glass is more processed than ordinary glass, resulting in visible imperfections in the glass. Carefully examine the glass to see if it has some distortions, slight bending.
When manufacturers temper glass, it gets heated. As a result becomes very bendable, which can leave imperfections when picked with tongs.
- Look at the glass through polarized lenses
You can use polarized lenses to look at the glass and look for imperfections. Hold up your glass towards the sunlight and look through the polarized lens. If it is tempered glass, you will see dark shady lines or spots which result from the tempering process.
- Search for an identifying stamp
If you have purchased genuine tempered glass, each glass panel will have a stamp to identify it with information on the manufacturer and the CPSC standards. As a result, if you do not find a carved stamp, you likely purchased ordinary glass.
Contact us at Glassupply.com for the highest quality genuine tempered safety glass. Our glass is directly from the manufacturer to guarantee you the best quality.
Advantages of using tempered glass
- Tempered glass is safer
Regular glass will break into random, uneven, and dangerous shards. On the other hand, tempered glass shatters into hundreds of tiny pieces, soft to the touch, thus harmless. Also, tempered glass surprisingly does not spread all over and breaks into harmless pebbles into one smaller area.
The edges of broken tempered glass are not dangerous for you and therefore is a safer option when you purchase a new shower door, a pool fence, or a glass table cover.
- Tempered glass is tougher
The tempered glass looks almost the same as standard glass, but it is so much different – and better. Compared with annealed glass, scratching tempered glass is very hard. Thanks to the tempering process and improvement in its structure, tempered glass is 5 to 10 times tougher than standard glass.
- Tempered glass is heat resistant
Tempered glass is not only safe, but it is also heat resistant since it has been through so much heat at the manufacturing stage. It is no surprise that shower glass panels and insulated glass windows are all constituted of such glass since these objects are constantly subject to high-temperature spikes.
Tempered glass can withstand heat up to 470°F (or 243°C for you Canadians out there). Hence, the perfect applications for tempered glass are shower doors and panels, windows, and exterior glass railings – all applications where high temperature or frequent temperature variations are involved.
You can use tempered glass for oven or fireplace door replacement, but ceramic glass would be the preferred glass type in such a situation. Avoid using tempered glass for woodstoves, since wood combustion happens anywhere between 572°F and 1,112°F (300°C and 600°C).
If your tempered glass is exposed to temperatures closer to or over 500°F (260°C), your piece would weaken significantly over time and become subject to breakage.
- Tempered glass is affordable
Tempered glass comes cheaper for your wallet than laminated glass, a more expensive type of glass that does not comprise the same safety features. In addition, you will save on insurance premiums when you install tempered glass.
In summary
Although glass panels might seem the same, tempered glass is more robust than ordinary glass. As a result, safety glass has various uses in commercial and residential buildings. If you doubt whether you bought tempered glass, you can identify safety glass in a few simple ways. You can feel for smooth edges, search for imperfections, look at the glass through polarized lenses and search for an identifying stamp.
Contact us at Glassupply.com for the highest quality tempered glass direct from the manufacturer. We customize glass products to suit your needs and guarantee the best market prices. You can conveniently buy what you need from our online store, and we will deliver it to your doorstep.
