Clear toughened safety glass cut to your millimetres, in six thicknesses from 6mm to 19mm. Polished edges and a proper 5mm radius on all four corners as standard, toughened to BS EN 12150 and impact classified to BS EN 12600. Priced online in size bands, cut to your exact figures.
This is the only decision that really matters, and it is driven by how the panel is held rather than how big it is.
Do not use toughened glass on a frameless balustrade with no handrail. Toughened glass shatters into fragments, so a broken pane leaves an open drop. A frameless barrier with no top rail needs laminated glass, where the interlayer holds a broken pane in place and the barrier still does its job. Our glass balustrade building regulations guide sets out which is required where.
For a floor you walk on, you want walk-on floor glass, which is a different product again.
Toughened glass also carries a rare, industry-wide risk of spontaneous breakage, where a pane fails on its own years later because of a microscopic nickel sulphide inclusion formed in the original float glass. It cannot be inspected out, it is not treated as a manufacturing defect, and glass is excluded from our 10 year product warranty. Heat soak testing to BS EN 14179-1 reduces the likelihood without removing it, and laminated glass keeps a broken pane in place. The full position is in our guide to spontaneous breakage.
Once glass is toughened it cannot be cut, drilled or edged. Every hole, notch and polished edge happens before it goes through the furnace, so a panel 5mm too big is scrap rather than an adjustment.
Measure the aperture in three places and work to the smallest, and allow a sensible gap for the clamps or channel rather than cutting it tight. If you are unsure, send us the opening sizes and what you are fixing into and we will work the glass size out for you.
Pick the width band and the height band your panel falls into, then send us your exact millimetres and we confirm them back before anything is cut. The smallest band is 500 x 500mm, and we will happily make a 400 x 400mm panel within it. The largest size online is 2000 x 1100mm; anything larger or an unusual shape is quoted individually.
Panels that follow the pitch of a staircase are an option on each listing. You do not need to work the angle out: send us the two vertical heights and the length along the pitch, or a sketch, and we will draw it for you to check. Holes, notches and cut-outs are priced individually, so tell us before you order.
Polished edges and a proper 5mm radius corner on all four corners as standard, not the dubbed corner knocked off by hand that a lot of suppliers quote. Detail on our material and finish standards page.
Most glass goes out on a pallet, usually on a tail lift vehicle with a pump truck, though that is how it normally works rather than something we can guarantee, so tell us before you order if you need it confirmed. Have two people and a clean flat area ready. Toughened glass is strong across the face and vulnerable on the edges and corners, which is where almost every breakage starts.
This is made to order in our own Sheffield workshop, so it can just as easily be made to your dimensions instead. Send a photo and rough sizes and we will price it.
