Wired Glass Is Not Safe Glass
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What Is Wired Glass?
Wired glass is a fire-rated glass that is installed in fire doors and windows in thousands of schools, dormitories, community centers, and other public buildings throughout the United States.
The Problems & Solutiions
Each year an estimated 2,500 American children and young adults suffer severe, often debilitating injuries after accidentally impacting wired glass. Unfortunately, wired glass is misleadingly sold in the US as both firerated and impact-resistant. However, even the CPSC has determined that wired glass can only withstand the impact from, at most, a five-year-old child.
•• Due to an exemption in 1977 granted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in order to give wired glass manufacturers a chance to develop a safer product, wired glass continues to be installed as fire-rated and impact-resistant in public areas, especially where children and students are active.
ACTION: This exemption needs to be removed.
•• To date the CPSC has not issued a public safety warning on wired glass because they cannot quantify the number of wired glass injuries that happen annually. The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database, from which CPSC draws its case data, does not code specifically for wired glass injuries.
ACTION
(1) CPSC must initiate an independent study on the safety of wired glass;
(2) NEISS must collect data on wired glass injuries; and
(3) CPSC must issue a public warning regarding the safety of wired glass.
BACKGROUND
In 1977, the CPSC developed regulations for fire-rated and impactresistant glass. The only fire-rated glass at the time was wired glass, which did not meet the new standard. Three Japanese companies and one British company manufacture all the wired glass that is sold worldwide. These manufacturers lobbied vigorously for an exemption, which would give them time to develop a safer alternative. In response, the CPSC gave wired glass manufacturers a two-and-a-half year exemption from the regulations to do this. However, after a court challenge from the manufacturers, the CPSC eliminated the deadline in 1984, effectively making the exemption permanent. In the absence of federal regulations on wired glass, the industry has adopted a voluntary, lower safety test standard known as ANSI Z97.1. The committee that developed these guidelines, comprised of many wired glass manufacturers, has rendered this standard virtually meaningless.
In order to sell wired glass in the UK, the wired glass manufacturers developed a more impact-resistant product with almost indecent haste. While the higher grade, safer glass is commercially available in the UK, the same manufacturers continue to sell the unsafe, lower grade wired glass as both fire-rated and impact-resistant in the United States. With an estimated $80 million dollars annually in North American sales to protect, the wired glass manufacturers have sought to perpetuate the myth that wired glass is safe glass.
Thanks to efforts of Greg Abel (founder of Advocates for Safe Glass) and Oregon State Senator Vicki Walker, Oregon is the first state in the nation to adopt the new International Council Code (ICC) safety regulations limiting the use of wired glass in hazardous locations in schools and athletic facilities in all new construction beginning October 1, 2003 and in all other construction starting October 1, 2004.
RESOURCES
Greg Abel, Advocates for Safe Glass
P.O. Box 24511, Eugene, Oregon 97402
http://www.safeglass.org
Recent press on wired glass:
http://www.djc.com/news/co/11155147.html
[Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce] |
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On January 28, 2001, Eugene, Ore., resident Greg Abel received a call that would change the course of his life and ultimately lead to what some consider the biggest code reform movement in the history of the architectural glazing industry. That was the day Abel’s son Jarred was seriously injured when his hand impacted wired glass while he was playing basketball in a University of Oregon gym.
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Wired Glass Is Not
Safe Glass
WHAT IS WIRED GLASS?
Wired glass is a fire-rated glass that is installed in fire doors and windows
in thousands of schools, dormitories, community centers, and other public
buildings throughout the United States.
THE PROBLEMS &
SOLUTIONS
Each year an estimated 2,500 American children and young adults suffer
severe, often debilitating injuries after accidentally impacting wired glass.
Unfortunately, wired glass is misleadingly sold in the US as both firerated
and impact-resistant.
- read more
|
Wired Glass Education
Comes To Capital Hill
Greg Abel, chairman for Advocates for Safe Glass of Eugene, Ore., said that a North Carolina college student’s untimely death last February could have been prevented if impact-resistant glass had been specified for a window in his dorm.
Keith Smith, a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, died after crashing through a large wired glass fire-safety window in a high-traffic hallway at the dorm.
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Prices Still Too High For Most
Fire Glass
School administrators can’t come up with the funds
The cost for most alternative fire- and impact-rated glass products remains prohibitive for many school districts, reported architects attending a Sept. 14 Capitol Hill symposium on wired glass in schools.
“It becomes an issue of value engineering,” said Dale Santee, principal at The Architectural Studio in Allentown, Pa. “Alternative production costs are quite high. So, what we need to do.
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