We see the world through it. The outside is kept away from our temperature-controlled environment by the use of it. It is glass.
Window and door glass has evolved greatly over generations. I remember old window glass in our family’s Civil War era farmhouse. Actually, what I remember most is putting my hand through a pane of glass as a child. This was a swing type window up in the old attic room. It scared me terribly. The noise was awful. The glass broke into many sharp pieces.
Amazingly, I had no cuts on my hand. Guess I was lucky; the adults thought so too when they ran up the back flight of farmhouse steps to see what had happened. Gee, what sweet memories!
Glass long ago would be distorted due to the way the melted glass was pulled into a thin sheet and cooled. The glass was very thin.
More modern methods of making glass (called float glass) involve a process where molten glass is poured over a bed of molten metal. The glass floated on top of the metal and cooled.
Glass evolved its way to the stage of “tempered” glass. This is a type of safety glass that if broken will shatter into many small pieces. This is a very tough type of glass. The toughness comes from the reheating of a finished piece of regular flat glass and quickly cooling it.
This internally puts tension on the glass. The tension or stress will keep the glass intact during expected knocks.
Even here in Florida we use this next type of glass: insulated. This term refers to the process of bonding two panes of glass together with trapped air space in between.
Insulated glass does exactly what it says, it creates an insulation between the outside temperature and the interior temperature. This type of glass will help reduce heating and cooling energy bills.
There are so many glass products on the market today, it is amazing. Besides the everyday (taken for granted) types of glass, we have stained glass, glass blocks and etched glass, just to name a few.
From the distorted panes of glass with all of their individualized imperfections of long ago, to the beauty and brilliance of large ceiling-to-floor and wall-to-wall windows of today, we can truly say the industry has met its challenges.
What’s next? We shall see.
