Look at one corner of the glass in a fire door. There should be an etched or printed mark.
Ordinary glass doesn't have one. And it goes into fire doors more often than you would think, because the glazier who was called out for a crack wasn't told what the door was.
So that is where we start. What is in the door now, and is it what the door was tested with?
What holds it in
The glass is held by beads. Between glass and bead there is an intumescent seal, or a glazing tape made for the job.
Heat gets at that join first. Put in a new pane and leave a bead held by two old pins, and you have paid for a door that will still fail. We look at the whole opening, not the pane.
Wired glass
A lot of older doors still have Georgian wired glass, with a grid of wire about 12mm square. The wire keeps cracked glass in place in a fire.
When it breaks it is sharp and hard to clear, so we take out the whole panel. If the door is at child height, tell us. Wired glass may not meet safety glazing rules in that spot, and your assessor can say what the location needs.
What we can't just swap
On some doors the maker tested one glass, one bead and one seal together. The certificate, if you have it, tells us what we can fit.
No paperwork? Then we can't promise the new pane brings back a rating nobody could prove in the first place. We fit the closest match and put in writing what it was.
A door that never had glass shouldn't get a hole cut in it. That isn't a repair, and without proof the door was tested that way we won't do it. Usually a new doorset is the better answer.
Timing
You won't get glass fitted on the first visit. It has to be measured, then ordered, then cut.
So we make the door safe, take sizes and come back. In a hotel or a block, several panels go into one return day.
Cracked right through on a door that is used all day? Tell us when you ring.
Send it to us with the postcode and we will price it door by door.
Get a price