Question about safety glass in sliding glass doors
I am begining a renovation of my double A frame Eichler.
All original sliders (Arcadia I believe) are intact and functional - just having them "tuned up."
My question is this:
There is a little "bug" or mark on the bottom of the panel that actually slides that reads "SAFETY GLASS." I know this means that the glass is tempered, BUT does this apply to the non-sliding panel as well? Is the entire door unit tempered or just the sliding panel? Some of my units have 1 fixed pane in addition to the 2 "door" panels for a 3 panel total unit. Is the entire unit Safety glass?
Any info would be greatly appreciated!
Well, I have no facts only some thoughts.
You don't say what year your house was built. With that information, either a call to Arcadia (or a call to your local building department) might be able to tell you if the time period in question Arcadia produced (or building code required) tempered glass.
http://www.arcadiaproducts.com
A less direct approach is the following. It is possible that glass in the slider suffered some mishap (as is sometimes the case with the tall fixed panels) . If the code at the time of the mishap dictated tempered glass, the replacement would be tempered but the rest of the unit would not. This should be easy to check by examining your other doors. If they all have the safety glass stamp, I'd say the unit was manufactured that way. I would also reason it unlikely that only the slider was tempered--having two different glass types would complicate production.
Just some thoughts.
Jake
Thanks, Jake.
The house was built in 1963/64.
I did call Arcadia, but they said they could not tell me about their glass policies back then.
I checked all 10 of our sliding units and they are all the same with the "Safety Glass" marking on only the sliding panel.
My reasoning agrees with yours that it would make sense that each unit is made of the same safety glass on all panels rather than mixing types of glass within each unit, I was just curious if anyone had any definitive information or similar experience.
Thanks for your help!
I believe that anyone in the glass industry will tell you: If there is no 'bug' it is not tempered. It does surprise me that the stationary door panes don't have the 'bug' when the movable panes do.
