How to Renovate for Student Safety

Renovating older school buildings often requires significant upgrades in interior design which take advantage of advancements in building materials.  Throughout most of the 20th Century, fire-rated glass simply meant wired glass.  Unfortunately, traditional wired glass passes fire endurance requirements, but fails to meet today’s higher impact safety standards.  Experts estimate that there are on average 2,300 annual school injuries resulting from student accidents involving traditional wired glass.  Some injuries seriously threaten a student’s life or leave them permanently handicapped.  Given these statistics and the number of students that have had their life catastrophically transformed, there’s no doubt that traditional wired glass poses a threat to student safety.  Renovating an older school building should address this issue.

Since 2003, model building codes adopted throughout the United States have included Federal safety standards requiring all glazing products used in potentially hazardous locations in schools (for example doors, sidelights, windows reaching within 18” of the floor) to meet today’s stringent impact resistance requirements.  SAFTI FIRST’s patented SuperLite I-Wwired glass, along with all of our other non-wired SuperLite products, meets these new standards.  Plus our certified field filming program offers the option of upgrading existing unsafe wired glass to today’s standards.

Designers now have a wide range of attractive, fire and impact resistant glazing options to use in creating bright, lively, and safe learning environments.  Advances in fire and safety-glazing technology offer architects and facility planners a chance to bring daylight into interior corridors, study areas, libraries, and laboratories.  Gone are the days when traditional wired glass was the only fire-rated glazing option, limiting interior glass to no more than 9 square feet in size.  Today, school design can include clear door vision panels, full-length sidelights, glass enclosed stairways, and entire walls of glass.

A word of caution: not all of the new clear products prevent the transmission of radiant heat and meet more stringent wall performance standards (ASTM E-119).  Many fire-rated glazing products may achieve fire endurance ratings of 60-minutes and beyond, but current building codes restrict their use and size.  SAFTI FIRST has a product for every fire-rated glazing application, so it’s important to consult with one of our technical sales representatives or click on our interactive Product Selector for additional information.

Knowing the performance criteria of fire-rated glazing opens a whole new world in school design.  Renovating older schools to include modern technology and meet today’s safety standards can preserve a community’s character while both enhancing and protecting its vital resources – schools and students.

To learn more, please take time to review our case study to see how a San Francisco high school made the most of a converted office building.