For anyone who is anticipating the opportunity to customize the look of their home, they may be surprised to learn just how many different types of custom glasswork are available to them. Not only is there a glass style to fit all sorts of designs and functions, but each has benefits inherent to how it was made. Of all the types of glass at use in a person’s home, the most common are:
- Annealed Glass: The most basic and well-known type of glass. Cooled extremely slowly from its molten state, annealed glass is extremely brittle, breaking apart into large, jagged pieces when something goes into or through it. Annealed glass is most often found in custom mirrors or cabinet doors.
- Heat-Strengthened Glass: This semi-toughened glass is simply annealed glass that has been reheated and cooled quickly, making it much tougher than it traditionally would have been before. Heat-strengthened glass usually finds use as windows, either acting as a barrier to the outside or used in transoms within the home.
- Laminated Glass: Any style of glass can be taken and laminated in order to make it extremely durable. Unlike laminating paper, where the entire paper becomes coated in plastic and resistant to tearing, laminated glass is when two panes are adhered together by the polymeric material sandwiched between them. The reinforced sides of the glass stuck together can be strong enough to create barriers against sound, destructive projectiles, and even ultraviolet radiation.
- Insulated Glass: Instead of using a special adhesive to stick two panes together, like laminated glass, insulated glass is simply two panes of glass﹘often treated with a kind of coating to protect against the sun﹘set into a frame to allow air to become trapped between them. This cushion of air (which can be either trapped natural air or a noble gas injected by the installers) will help the house stay warm without having to spend more on energy.
Each type of glass plays an important role in the look and feel of a space, but there is another variation that is both extremely strong as well as malleable to a diverse range of uses. Of course, we’re talking about tempered glass.
Perfect For Custom Glasswork
Tempered glass is the strongest variation of glass to come out of the factory. It is created by heating the initial compound to nearly 620 degrees Celcius in an oven and then flash-cooling it with the aid of multiple high-pressure air nozzles pointed all over its surface. The resultant piece of glass is now 4-5 times stronger than regular annealed glass and can be used in a variety of different applications, from custom glass cabinetry to custom mirrors and coffee tables.
The Benefits of Tempered Glass
Tempered glass has no shortage of benefits for those who choose to purchase and use it to outfit their home or office. In addition to its natural strength and the ease by which it can be laminated, coated, or insulated, tempered glass offers these important benefits:
- Safety: Typically, when glass breaks, it creates large, dangerous shards that can often lead to even more grievous injuries. Tempered glass breaks differently, shattering into hundreds of tiny pieces that are less prone to stabbing or tearing someone.
- Beauty: Perfect crystalline glass and tempered strength are not mutually exclusive. One of the best qualities of this reinforced glass is how beautiful and clear it can be.
- Versatility: Tempered glass is perfect for any type of custom glasswork. It has been used in windows, as screens for smart devices like phones and televisions, and to display china in a hutch. The only catch: the glass must be cut to size before it undergoes the tempering process because once it has been tempered, attempting to cut or shape it will not only be much more difficult but it will ruin the integrity of the glass’s strength.
- Strength: Its inherent strength against breaking has already been mentioned, but its strength offers more benefit than simply guarding against shattering; tempered glass is also far less prone to scratching, being affected by high winds, or losing its integrity to high temperatures. In fact, it is so strong that it is the ideal candidate for use in kitchen appliances like ovens and microwaves.
If you are contemplating which type of glass to use in your bathroom shower, your office space, or your kitchen’s French doors, you could do much worse than tempered glass. Our team at Smitty’s is more than happy to install beautiful, strengthened glass anywhere you wish. Just give us a call and let’s get started!