Frameless Glass Doors

Armour Plate Doors are often referred to nowadays as "Frameless Glass Doors" or Frameless Toughened Glass Doors, which are a sheet of toughened safety glass (The Door blank), Fitted to either a rail or patch fitting system with a combination of lock and handle designs.

Frameless glass doors are now very popular within offices and as the main entrances to larger glass facades.

One of the key benefits of this type of frameless safety glass is that it is designed to shatter into an infinite number of pieces should a heavy impact or accident occur, protecting anyone in the vicinity from the dangers you would normally expect from broken glass. A to Z Glazing have been installing and maintaining these doors for over 35 years and offer just about the quickest turn-around for a replacement installation when and if it is required.

Frameless toughened glass doors mainly fall into three categories Labelled simply types A, B, and C; the pictures below show an example of each type. Variations of these three categories are found when allowing for the inclusion of letter plates, door locks and handles etc.

Figure 1. Frameless Internal Glass Door – Type A

Replacement of a Large 15mm toughened glass door with a ‘L’ shaped handle incorporating the locking mechanism.
Figure 2. Frameless External Glass Door - Type B

Replacement of an external 12mm toughened glass door with back to back stainless-steel handles. This provided a completely frameless finish.
Figure 3. Frameless Glass Door - Type C

Doors boarded at a branch of Evans Cycles prior to replacement after damaged caused by a small storm. Toughened external 12mm glass doors with small back to back ‘D’ shaped handles.

Characteristics:

These glass doors have stress deliberately introduced into them in a controlled manor during the toughening process, should they break it would be in a safe manor in accordance withli>BS EN 12600 Class 1.
Once toughened, the glass doors makeup and dimensions can no longer be altered.
As the word ‘Toughened’ implies, these glass door blanks are tougher against facial impact due to the thermal alteration undertaken during toughening.
These glass doors will have improved flexibility once toughened.
They are available in in Clear glass, Tinted glass and obscured glass in a range of thicknesses
Most of these toughened doors will required some form of Manifestation applied to them to make their presence more noticeable.

Case Study 1 – Refurbished and repair of a pair of frameless glass doors. (Type A)

After being Ram-raided by a vehicle - A to Z Glazing attended site to make the premises secure, removing the broken glass and door fittings, which had also sustained some damage. The door handles were replaced with new stainless-steel back to back tubular handles, the door rails and cover plates underwent shot-blasting and were then powder coated to a colour chosen by the client. Within a few days the replacement door blanks were fitted, and new manifestation applied.
Case Study 2 - Replacement Armour plate door (Type A) with Centre lock

Mag lock fitted to an A P Door

Figure 1a the client had recently had their premises broken into by forcing the top transom upwards with a jemmy bar. A to Z Glazing replaced the 12mm Armour Plate glass door blank with a new blank incorporating a central lock to the lead edge. Additional work required was a bespoke entry system to suit the client’s needs, which included an external keypad entry

Figure 1b - Key pad entry system
As part of the upgrade a Mag-lock was installed to the top inside of the frameless glass door (fig 1a) which would be released using a numerical key pad (fig 1b), internally a door release push button was fitted and an emergency break glass door release. All making entry and exit to the studio much easier when staff were busy in other areas.
Figure 1c - Break glass Emergency door release.

Servicing and Maintenance

In time all glass doors will require some attention or TLC to ensure they remain in working order and meet with the necessary standards for safety. How often depends on several factors, such as the amount of footfall passing through the doorway. It is best to have a maintenance program in place to prevent a glass door failure, rather than have ongoing costly and inconveniently timed repairs being required. A to Z glazing can help you to put such a maintenance programme into place, that is tailored to suit your organisation and completed during ‘Engineering Hours’ if so required.

A to Z Glazing are specialist in the installation, repair and replacement of all types of frameless glass doors.

Below is a small gallery of other related doors that have been fitted in recent years.

Frameless Toughened Automated Glass Sliding Doors

This picture shows a pair of Toughened Glass doors, that were silk screen to produce an obscured milky white central section, with a solid grey border. The door blanks were structurally bonded onto an aluminium frame work
A Controlled Breakage

This picture will give you an idea as what to expect when a toughened glass door fails. As you can see it has shattered into numerous safe pieces, leaving a cleaning up and securing task ahead. Typically, A to Z Glazing would replace a door in this situation within a matter of days.
Revolving Toughened glass Door

Toughened Safety glass is a key component in building facades and as such is also incorporated into the design of many revolving glass doors, as in the picture opposite. These doors are quite often three or more Armour plate doors set at an angle to each other encapsulated within a curved glass structure, which the flow of people to enter or leave a building whilst maintaining the building temperature. When replacing a broken panel the method is similar to most modern Frameless glass door designs.
Obscured Toughened Glass Doors

These 12mm obscured toughened glass doors were created using the same toughening process that we have mentioned before, however after toughening the glass was etched with acid to make it obscured for the privacy of security staff in an operations room. A similar effect can be obtained by sand blasting the glass or applying an obscured window film after manufacture.