Identifying and purchasing glass

[oculushut]

We came home to find our patio door glass shattered. Thankfully it was only the outside pane. To this day we have no idea why this happened.

Anyhow, we had a contractor quote a piece of glass and install it. However, when they came to put it in, the unit they brought with them used glass which was far thinner and not the same colour as what was there before...

I have struggled to identify the specification of the glass. Any tips?

Some clues:

• We live very close to City Airport in London. I believe most of the places around here have a special type of glass which provides sound insulation of some sort.
• The glass shattered into "cubes". I believe that this indicates that the glass was tempered?
• The glass is part of a "Technal" system (I saw a little logo for the Window)
• We saw this marking:

SOLAGLAS 011
TF
02
BS6206A
KM 23356​

• I believe the property was built around 2005
• After looking more carefully, the contractor said that he believed that the double glazed unit is 8mm glass with 14mm insert and 6.5mm laminated, but he was not sure...

Any help appreciated!

 

[KenGMac]

oculushut, good evening.

Was this an insurance claim? if so then complain to the Insurer.

As for what caused the shattering? do you live anywhere near the flight path, or under the path?

 

[oculushut]

Hello KemGMac, not an insurance claim.

As for the cause of the shattering, we have no idea... there were no rocks, bird wing marks or anything like that. Just a huge shattered panel. It looked quite beautiful actually.

 

[Notch7]

Solaglas is the double glazing arm of Saint Gobain glass company

Technal is the name of an aluminium window manufacturer.

BS6206A is an old standard for safety glass.

The broken glass was toughened. It wasnt therefore stadip silence acoustic which is laminated -the otger skin may have been.

Toughened glass can just go for no reason.

8mm thick glass is pretty unusual, are they very large doors? 8mm +6.3mm would weigh 35kg /m2

If its clear glass but different colour, that could mean the original was hard coat low emissivty coating which is more tinted than the more modern soft coat.

 

[oculushut]

Notch7 - thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Few follow up questions:

* BS6206A - is there a new equivalent standard I should follow if I want something equivalent?
* "...the otger skin may have been" - do you mean that there may have been some kind of laminate on the toughened glass?
* Door size - not in front of the door right now, but I would guess it was around 2m high and < 1m wide 35Kg/m2 - wow...
* OK... so hard coat low emissivity coating

And finally - where can I buy something like this? Sounds pretty specialist!

 

[Notch7]

Notch7 - thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Few follow up questions:

* BS6206A - is there a new equivalent standard I should follow if I want something equivalent?
* "...the otger skin may have been" - do you mean that there may have been some kind of laminate on the toughened glass?
* Door size - not in front of the door right now, but I would guess it was around 2m high and < 1m wide 35Kg/m2 - wow...
* OK... so hard coat low emissivity coating

And finally - where can I buy something like this? Sounds pretty specialist!

Sorry -what I meant to say is: the glass that shattered was toughened not laminated, so if your original dg unit had acoustic glass, which is laminated, it mustve been the other pane.

Dont worry about the standard, all you need to know is your glass needs to be either toughened or laminated. Both are accepted as safety glass in doors.

 

[crank39]

There are so many variables its going to be very difficult to match up exactly, OK outer pane was clearly toughened as its shattered, is the inner pane toughened or laminated, the PVB layer can cause some colour differences. Then you've got LOW E glass, is it hard or softcoat, both will have a different hue, we already know solaglas toughened it so that narrows it down to being Saint Gobain glass and not Pilkington which is a good starting point but just look at the SGG website, the mind will boggle! You really need to exact original spec which will be nigh on impossible, if you don't know it then how will the contractor, he can take a best guesstimate but unless he's extremely lucky then its just a wild guess

 

[bernardgreen]

8mm thick glass is pretty unusual,

Having two different thickness of glass improves the sound insulation properties of the window.