Frequently Asked Questions

Tempered glass is a regulated, mandatory requirement for specific applications within homes and businesses. This type of glass is essential for ensuring safety in areas where the risk of breakage and injury is higher. Here are some common uses of tempered glass:

Shower Enclosures and Bathroom Glas: Tempered glass is the standard choice for all shower enclosures and bathroom glass, providing durability and safety.
Glass in Doors and Surrounding Doors: Any glass used in or around doors must be tempered to meet safety regulations and prevent injury.

In contrast,  annealed glass is commonly used for applications where safety regulations are less stringent. For example, when used as a protective cover on wood surfaces, a thinner glass such as 1/4″ is typically used. The edges of the glass are usually polished to create a reflective surface and prevent injury from sharp edges. In these cases, there is no need to temper the glass.

1. Low-E Coatings or low emissivity is a coating on a piece of glass that better insulates a room. It has been 46 years since Low-E was introduced to the North American glazing market. The product has developed from a premium option limited to residential windows in cold, northern markets to a standard window component across many glazing applications. With annual shipments exceeding 600 million square feet, Low-E is a testament to both the patience required in developing building-product markets and the success of the glass industry in enhancing the value of its product offering. Current developments in energy policy are likely to ensure continued strong growth.
   
   
2. When heat or light energy is absorbed by glass, it is either shifted away by moving air or re-radiated by the glass surface. The ability of a material to radiate energy is known as emissivity. In general, highly reflective materials have a low emissivity, and dull, darker-colored materials have a high emissivity. All materials, including windows, radiate heat in the form of long-wave, infrared energy depending on the emissivity and temperature of their surfaces. Radiant energy is one of the important ways heat transfers occur with windows. Reducing the emissivity of one or more window glass surfaces improves a window’s insulating properties.
   
   
3. Since energy-efficient windows reflect much more sunlight than simple glass windows, they can focus sunlight and cause damage when they are somewhat concave. Damage to the sidings of homes and automobiles has been reported in news stories. Low-E windows may also block radio frequency signals. Buildings without distributed antenna systems may then suffer degraded cell phone reception.
   
   
4. Since Low-E has two panes of glass, when the heat inside your home tries to escape through the window, the Low-E glass reflects it back inside. The same thing happens when outdoor heat tries to enter your home, and this results in a more comfortable indoor environment regardless of the weather.
   
   
5. It restrains around 40 – 60% of heat energy, which would have been lost by ordinary glass, and helps lower heating and cooling costs, which account for 4% of the total annual US energy consumption. In 2017, about 4,015 billion kilowatt-hours were used in electricity alone, which means that 1,003.75 billion kilowatt-hours were used just to heat and cool buildings; imagine if no windows were Low-E, and all of our cooling and heating systems were going full speed all the time. It also helps in reducing interior home fading due to outside ambient light.