Wired glass to lose its safety designation

Since 1990, wired glass has been the sole material cited in the National Building Code (NBC) for safety glazing in fire-rated applications. This is going to change soon. The change will have major implications for designers and contractors working with fire-rated glazing materials.To get more news about wired glass, you can visit boegger.net official website.

There is evidence that even before NBC adopts updated requirements for safety glazing in its forthcoming editions, designers and contractors may need to make some changes today to avoid future liability.

Fire-rated glass has, for many years, been an effective barrier in preventing the passage of hot gas, flame, and smoke. Hence, NBC 3.1.9.1, Fire Stopping of Service Penetrations, was updated in 1990 to note openings "in a fire separation having a fire-resistance rating of not more than 1 hour may be protected with fixed wired glass assemblies.”

However, unless it is organically coated, wired glass falls far short as a safety glazing because it does not safely withstand human impact. The wire embedded in the glass is meant to hold the material together after it breaks in a fire, reducing the spread of flames, smoke, and hot gasses. The wire accomplishes this, but when the assembly breaks from human contact, the resulting jagged glass shards and strong wire can cause lacerations to anyone moving forcefully through the broken material. Evidence has stacked up over the years that these products cause as much, if not more, damage than they stop.
This damage is troubling as the material has been used in schools across Canada, among other applications. Even though the Canadian Hospitals Injuries Reporting and Prevention Program does not track the number of injuries attributable to falls through wired glass in detail, Laura Rosella of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, published research in 2015 based on U.S. injury estimates that suggest approximately 368 wired glass injuries take place each year in Canadian schools.

The problem has been widely recognized, and manufacturers and regulatory authorities have taken action. Since the 1990s, glass manufacturers have committed to developing safer safety glazing solutions that can meet the demands of fire-rated applications. In 2003, the U.S. building codes began banning the use of wired glass in hazardous locations, such as doors. In 2015, Canada began working on this.

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