Float Glass Vs Tempered Glass: How to Choose?

If you are looking to upgrade the windows in your home and trying to cope with rising energy costs, then you will likely be faced with the question at some point: which is better: tempered glass vs float glass.

So, which is best? Let's look at these two glass types in turn and identify what they offer for your home ......

What is tempered glass?

Tempered glass is a type of safety glass that has been subjected to a controlled heat treatment or chemical treatment to increase its strength compared to ordinary glass. Tempering places the outer surface in compression and the interior in tension. This stress causes the glass to shatter into small particles when broken, rather than into jagged pieces like normal annealed glass. Granular pieces are less likely to cause injury.

Tempered Glass

Tempered Glass Applications

Tempered glass is used for its safety and strength in a variety of applications, including passenger car windows, shower doors, aquariums, architectural glass doors and tables, refrigerator trays, cell phone screen protectors, bulletproof glass components, diving masks, and dishes and cookware.

Office Partitions, Partitions and Sneeze Shields

Due to the health and safety measures in place due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), glass shields have shifted from buffets and cafeterias to personal protective equipment (PPE) in retail, corporate offices, personal care retailers and grocery stores . 

Hotel Showers and Doors

The safety element of tempered glass is ideal for commercial bathroom showers and doors. Its durability and strength provide additional protection against dangerous breakage and injury in the event of slips and falls. It can also withstand high and humid temperatures.

What is float glass?

First produced commercially in the UK by Sir Alastair Pilkington in the 1950s, float glass is the most widely used type of glass today. Given its excellent qualities, it can be easily processed into other forms of glass, such as laminated safety glass and mirrors.

Float Glass

Float glass applications - from cars to windows

Float glass is very flexible in its construction and can be formed and bent into different forms in the heated syrup state. This gives it a wide range of applications. This is why it can be found in a variety of different products. These include

Automobiles

Mirrors

Furniture

Insulating glass types / multi-layer glass

Single pane glass

Window Glass

Although mirror requires an additional layer of silver plating on the float glass, it can be used to make many types of furniture without any further treatment.

Which glass type is best?

Each glass type, float and tempered, offers something different; these two have proven to be very different options.Fullwinglass pass Australian CSI certificates, US IGCC SGCC certificates, European CE certificates and Chinese national safety glass standards. Now we are working with customers in over 100 countries. To help customer to better achieve their success is our aim.

Are you ready to learn more about glass types and how they can be used for your unique application in detail? Welcome to contact us or visit our website to learn more about glass.