Published · Clear Vision Glass & Glazing
AS 1288 is the Australian Standard governing glass in buildings, and among other things it sets out where ordinary annealed glass is not permitted. The rules exist because of a specific failure mode: annealed glass breaks into large shards with edges sharp enough to cause serious injury. Safety glass does not.
This matters practically, because a lot of older homes across Pakenham, Berwick, Narre Warren and the hills have annealed glass in positions where it is no longer allowed — usually because it was replaced cheaply at some point by someone who matched what was already there.
What counts as Grade A safety glass
There are two types. Toughened glass is heat-treated so that it is roughly five times stronger than annealed glass of the same thickness, and when it does break it disintegrates into small blunt granules rather than shards. It cannot be cut, drilled or edited after toughening.
Laminated glass is two or more sheets bonded with a plastic interlayer. When it breaks, the pieces stay stuck to the interlayer rather than falling out of the frame. That makes it the better choice where a failure could allow a fall, and it also brings security and acoustic benefits.
Both satisfy Grade A. Which one is appropriate depends on the position, and it is not always interchangeable.
Where safety glass is required
- All glazing in doors — entry doors, internal glazed doors, sliding doors, stacker doors and bifolds, without exception.
- Sidelights and panels beside a door, within a defined distance of the door edge, because they read as part of the doorway and get walked into.
- Any glazing where the bottom of the pane is less than 500mm above the floor — a low window is at body height for a falling adult or a running child.
- Glazing in or near a bath or shower enclosure. Wet feet, hard surfaces and no clothing make bathrooms the worst possible place for annealed glass.
- Glazing to stairs, landings and ramps, and anywhere forming part of a balustrade.
- Glazing within a pool barrier, which additionally has its own standard in AS 1926.1.
How to tell what you already have
Toughened glass carries a permanent stamp, usually etched into one corner, identifying the manufacturer and the standard. If you can find a stamp, it is toughened. If you cannot find one anywhere on a pane in one of the positions above, treat it as suspect.
Laminated glass is harder to spot but you can often see the interlayer as a faint line on the exposed edge of the pane if any edge is visible.
It is worth walking around the house and checking. The positions that most commonly turn out to be non-compliant in the housing stock around here are bathroom windows in older homes, sidelights beside front doors, and low windows in bedrooms — usually in homes where the original glazing predates the current standard or was replaced without regard to it.
What to do about it
There is no requirement to retrospectively upgrade compliant-at-the-time glazing simply because the standard has changed. But there are two moments where it matters. The first is when a pane breaks — the replacement must meet the current standard for that position, which is not negotiable, and any glazier who offers to just match what was there is doing you a disservice.
The second is when you sell, renovate or start renting the property out. Non-compliant glazing in a door or a bathroom is a genuine liability, and building inspections do pick it up.
If you are re-glazing anyway, upgrading is usually a modest cost difference on a job you are already paying for. When we replace glass, it goes back in at the grade the position actually requires — not the grade that happened to be there.
Want this looked at?
We’re glaziers based in Pakenham servicing Cardinia Shire and the City of Casey. Free quotes, and for most jobs a photo is enough to get a price.
