This may seem like an obvious title, but we had a first-hand experience with just how dangerous float can be on a very difficult job we were doing…

A lovely family came to us because they’d recently purchased a home, and having a number of young children wanted to change all the glass in the house from float (which is regular, non-safety glass) to safety glass. Some people might scoff at this, but when you realise that broken glass cuts through skin like butter, it’s another matter.

Anyway, it was a two-storey home and involved a bit of ladder work. Now, the tricky part was that the float was often hard to get at the second floor, and we needed to remove the float and clear the channels so we could then install the 6.38 clear laminated safety glass. And that’s when it happened (and that’s why we’re fully insured) — a piece of float came out the wrong way, and cut straight into one of our glazier’s legs.

We’d never had that happen before, and haven’t had it happen since, but it was a nasty cut. An ambulance had to be called, and around 30 stitches were needed. It took Patrick several weeks to recover.

The lesson here: float glass is dangerous! There’s a reason it’s not used in doors or in bathrooms (beyond a certain size) as determined by AS1288-2006 (the regulations that govern glass in buildings). When in doubt, people, install safety glass.