If you have a pool, you’ll certainly need to have some kind of safe pool fencing around it. The simple thing to do is contact fencing contractors to do the job, but first, consider what kind of fence you’d like to have. There are several options, but toughened glass is not only sustainable, it has several advantages, some of which other kinds of fences lack.
- You can see right through glass pool fences meaning it is easier to keep an eye on the children in or out of the pool.
- Because of its transparency, a glass fence does not appear to cut your yard in half, thus making it look smaller that it really is.
- You can still enjoy the look of your garden through the fence without any hindrance.
- Glass can be used for other fences in the area, for instance a protective wall along the edge of a patio, along an outdoor stairway or across a balcony, so all the fences will match offering a cohesive look and feel to your property.
- Glass is sustainable. It is made from sand of which there is plenty and it can be recycled completely, with no breakdown in strength of the recycled products.
- A glass fence needs no maintenance, which will save you a lot of costs over the years.
- Glass is not prone to white ants, rot from getting wet, rust, warping or many of the other disadvantages of other materials such as timber and even steel.
You can easily see that glass as a fence has many advantages over other kinds of fence materials. No matter what kind of home or garden you have, a glass fence won’t intrude or look as if it doesn’t belong there simply because it can hardly be noticed.
Even so, you may be wondering if glass is really as strong as it looks. Glass for fences is called toughened glass; this means it has gone through a process that makes it extremely tough and unlikely to break even if the panel is dropped.
Annealed (ordinary) glass is used to make the toughened glass needed for fencing. It is placed onto a roller table and heated to around 620 degrees Centigrade, much higher than the temperature required to make the ordinary glass. Then it is cooled very rapidly by a cold blast of air with the result that it shrinks and becomes very strong and tough. The process does not change all those good things we like about glass; its clarity, strength and beauty.
Ordinary glass will shatter into large dagger-like pieces. If toughened glass shatters, it crumbles into tiny pieces with no sharp corners, just like a car windshield does when it shatters, so it is not likely to cause any harm.