Toughened Glass / Building Regulations

[Duffers4768]

I had new double glazed windows installed last year and I recently had a tradesperson round who noticed that some of the glass did not not display the kite mark or identification that it was tougehened glass. The window concerned is 600mm from the floor and I believe that this must be toughened glass by law.
The installers initally told me that there wasn't a problem but since I contacted their certification body to clarify the situation the installers have been back and told me that it would take 5-10 days to replace the glass.

I have young children and I am concerned about their safety. This has now made me nervous about the rest of the installation.
Should I get an independant inspection or is it the duty of the certification body to come and do a full inspection?

 

[Richard C]

Only certain windows & doors have to be safety glass by law & the installer must follow the building regs. If it hasn't got a kite mark, it almost certainly isn’t safety glass; tell them to fully comply with the regs. or you’ll go back to FENSA.

The little drawing on this thread shows the requirements.
//www.diynot.com/network/wms/albums/93/229

If you wan't safety glass anywhere else, you will almost certainly have to pay extra unless you specified & paid for it when you ordered.

 

[Duffers4768]

Many thanks for your reply Richard C.
The installers have only acted on replacing the glass because Certass have asked them to comply with the building regulations. It is now clear that they have not complied with the buliding regulations as far as the glazing is concerned. I am now beginning to question whether they have installed Low E glass and on what other aspects of the installation have they tried to cut corners.

Certass have told me that they have inspected one installation of this company and found no faults and that they have no intention of coming to inspect mine.

 

[Richard C]

Certass have told me that they have inspected one installation of this company and found no faults and that they have no intention of coming to inspect mine.

Sorry, I just assumed it was FENSA, I’m not familiar with CERTASS & they seem to be fairly new to the scene.
I found this site:
http://www.buildingtalk.com/news/teu/teu115.html
I would certainly push it further; try contacting the UK Trades Confederation (UKTC) who appears to be policing it. As a relative newcomer to the self certification scheme, I would have thought CERTASS wouldn’t take too much leaning on if you supply detailed written information regarding exactly where one of their member companies have failed to comply with BR’s & broken the law by not been fitting safety glass; I thought that was the whole point of such associations!

There are archive threads on the forum about how to tell if you have K glass fitted or not so a search should bring them up. The units are also usually marked internally along with a date & serial number; look between the glass panes. When delivered, K glass has stickers on it & I checked all mine + that they were fitted the correct way around before the fitters removed the stickers; mine are also marked Heatguard between the panes. If it’s any consolation, I believe most of the window manufacturers now supply only K glass units as a matter of course but you should check.