Do you know insulating glass and laminated glass which one is more suitable for your doors and windows
01 Nov 2021
Windows and doors plays very important role in the building, and the glass selection of windows and doors will directly affect the lighting, ventilation, thermal insulation, sound insulation, sealing and other performance of the entire home environment . When deciding on the kind of tempered glass for your home, two options that comes up often is choosing whether insulating glass or laminated glass, they are the most popular, durable and practical. If you don’t know which one is better for you, it is important to take the time to learn all about them before you make a decision.
What is insulating glass?
Insulating glass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulated_glazing) is invented by Americans in 1865, is a new type of building material with good heat insulation, sound insulation, aesthetic application and reducing the dead weight of a building. Insulated glass came into common use in the 1970’s, and with rising energy costs and concern for the environment, became wide-spread in the 1980’s. It is commonly also known as Double Glazing or Triple Glazing, it is consist of two or more plies glass, separated by vacuum or gas-filled space, using high strength and high air tightness composite adhesive, bonding the glass sheet to an aluminum alloy frame with desiccant.
What is Laminated Glass?
Laminated glass is commonly referred to as Sandwich Glass or Shatterproof Glass. It is made of two or more plies of glass bound together with one or more interlayers, typically of polyvinyl butyral (PVB), ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA), or thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). As you can saw it as a car’s windshield. Even if the glass is broken, the shards will be stuck on the film, and the surface of the broken glass remains clean and smooth. This effectively prevents the occurrence of debris piercing and penetrating fall incidents, and ensures personal safety. Compared with other glass, it has shock resistance, anti-theft, bullet proof, explosion-proof performance.
So, which one is better for you?
Actually, both insulating glass and laminated glass have heat and sound insulation effect to some extent, but Laminated glass has excellent shock resistance and explosion-proof, while insulating glass has better thermal and sound insulation performance. In terms of sound insulation, they has some differences. Laminated glass has good shock resistant performance, so when the wind is strong, the possibility of its own vibration bringing noise is small, especially for the medium and low frequency. Insulating glass is easy to produce resonance. But when it comes to isolating external noise, insulating glass has advantage. Therefore, depending on the location of use, the glass to be selected is also different. Insulated glass is used more often in home applications, and laminated glass is used more for commercial applications.
For ordinary home use, insulating glass is the most widely used choice, with good thermal insulation performance, especially suitable for hot or cold areas, and can greatly reduce the power consumption of air-conditioned buildings. In summer, it can be insulated by more than 70%, and in winter, it can keep indoor heating not easy to lose, and reduce heat loss by up to 40%, which plays a role of heat preservation, thereby turning cool in summer and warm in winter into reality. So, if you live in a noisy but safe environment and the building is not high, then insulating glass is the first and cost-effective choice, which can reduce the noise by 30-45dB. However, if it is on a high floor, where the wind is very large and the noise is relatively small compared to the outside, laminated glass is also good a choice.
In Europe and America, due to its safety and shatterproof quality, laminated glass finds wide variety of applications in skylight, partition, glass facades, balustrade. Ordinary glass is fragile and brittle. In case of breakage or accidental collision, ordinary glass shatters into long, jagged pieces that can cause serious, sometimes even fatal injuries. This is why using laminated glass becomes the best alternative. Laminated glass’ safety feature is extremely useful in areas that need high-security such as banks, money-exchange centers, jewellery shops, museums, and art galleries. Areas in residential and commercial complexes that are prone to theft, burglary and criminal activities can have laminated glass installed to provide better security. Moreover, laminated glass is the best material to be used in the construction of buildings in disaster-prone areas, especially where hurricanes and tornadoes are common.
The most direct manifestation of this two types of glass is the use of the glass sunroom. Generally, the roof of the sunroom is using laminated tempered glass, while the facade of the sunroom using insulating tempered glass. Because if encounter falling objects from high altitude, the safety of laminated glass is relatively high, and it is not easy to be completely broken. The use of insulating glass for the facade glass can better achieve heat insulation and keep the sun room warm in winter and cool in summer. Therefore, it cannot be said that the insulating glass and laminated glass which one is better. We can only say in which aspect of demand you need more, which glass you can choose. Glass is the knight to protect home, what's suitable is the best!
Tag: glass
Originally published 01 Nov 2021, updated 01 Nov 2021.