Why Glass Below 500mm From the Floor Must Be Safety Glass
Of all the safety glass rules, this is the one that catches people most often, because it applies to panels that look completely harmless.
The rule
Glazing where any part of the pane sits below 500mm from floor level must be safety glass — toughened or laminated. It applies regardless of what the panel is made of otherwise, and regardless of how long the existing glass has been there.
Why 500mm
It is roughly the height a falling adult’s body reaches, and about the height of a running child’s head and shoulders.
Glass at that height is not something you see and avoid — it is something you fall into or trip toward. And ordinary annealed glass at body height breaks into long sharp shards, which is a very different injury from crumbling toughened granules.
The rule is not about the glass breaking. It is about what the pieces do afterwards.
Which panels it catches
The ones people do not expect:
- Full-height side lights beside a front door — the bottom section is well under 500mm
- Low windows in older homes, particularly bedrooms and living rooms with sills close to the floor
- Bottom panels in French and sliding doors
- Stair and landing balustrade infills
- Glazed panels beside a hallway that run to floor level
- Low-level windows in a bathroom, which are caught twice over
Note it is any part of the pane below 500mm, not the whole pane. A tall window whose sill sits at 400mm is caught even though most of the glass is well above head height.
Why so many older homes do not comply
Because the requirement did not exist when they were built. Houses from the 1950s through the 1970s are full of low-level annealed glass that was entirely normal at the time.
Nothing obliges you to replace compliant-when-built glass that is intact. But the moment you replace a pane, the new one has to meet the current standard. You cannot put ordinary glass back into a position that now requires safety glass.
This is the trap. The instinct when a pane breaks is to order the same thing again — and for a low-level panel in an older house, the same thing is no longer permitted.
What this means in practice
For a plain pane, order it toughened. Straightforward.
For a patterned pane, it is less simple. Patterned glass is not safety glass — the texture is decorative and changes nothing about how it breaks. The usual answers are a toughened version of the same pattern where one exists, or a laminated alternative.
Tell us where the panel is going when you order and we will work out what the position needs.
Toughened or laminated here
For a low-level window pane, toughened is usually right — strong, and the granules are far safer than shards at body height.
Laminated is the better answer where the panel is also a barrier: a balustrade infill, or glazing at the edge of a level change. There, a panel that disappears when it breaks is exactly what you do not want. See toughened or laminated.
Specify it up front
Toughening happens after cutting and edgework and cannot be undone. Every dimension, hole and edge finish has to be final before the panel is treated.
So this is decided at the point of ordering, not later. If you are unsure whether your panel is caught, measure from the finished floor to the lowest point of the glass and tell us the number.
Email us at info@affordableglassonline.com.au and we will talk it through. Read the full safety glass requirements for the other positions that are caught.