Why Would You Laminate Glass 

Why would you laminate glass?  What is laminated glass?  What does it do?

When you hear the word laminate, you don't immediately gravitate towards glass, maybe paper or an ID card, but glass?

Laminated glass describes a polyvinyl butyral interlayer (PVB) that is sandwiched between two pieces of glass.  If some sort of projectile hits laminated glass, it can break, but the broken glass makes a spider web pattern, and actually stays in tact.  A common type of laminated glass most of us come in contact with everyday is an automobile windshield.

But why would you put laminated glass in a window?  There are many reasons to do this; one of the major reasons is security.  Depending on the thickness* of the PVB interlayer, it is very difficult to break through laminated glass.  In fact, it can take 30 hits with a baseball bat to puncture a hole in some types of laminated glass including Gorell's Armor Glass Plus, Armor Max Plus, and Armor Impact Plus.

Another great benefit of laminated glass, is the safety factor.  As we have mentioned already, when this unique glass breaks, it forms a spider web pattern, but stays 'in tact.'  This type of glass is also used in hurricane/impact windows.  Laminated glass is able to withstand multiple projectile hits, just like a hurricane would produce. 

It also has great ultra violet and solar protection.  This means anything behind a laminated glass window has extra protection against fading, things like drapes, carpets, paintings, and furniture.  As a testament to its fade protection, our most treasured document, the Declaration of Independence is behind laminated glass.

Also, with this special glass, you also have a more effective sound transmission class.  This essentially means, the outside noise you would normally hear with an ordinary window is dramatically reduced with laminated glass.

Finally, if the laminated glass is coupled together with some sort of high performance glass such as Gorell's, Armor Glass line of products, you also gain great energy efficiency/savings.

*There are various thicknesses of the PVB interlayer, the minimum thickness recommended by this author is .060 or greater.  Anything less, such as a .030 will not offer the same type of benefits described above.