BC Building Code · Metro Vancouver
Where BC requires safety glass in a home
Safety glass is tempered or laminated — not ordinary annealed float. In a Metro Vancouver home, the location decides the glass. This is general guidance. We confirm the opening against the current BC Building Code before we cut.
The two safety glasses
Tempered glass is heat-treated. It breaks into small cubes. It is the usual spec for shower doors, many sidelights, and patio-door lites.
Laminated glass is two lites with an interlayer. It holds in the opening when it breaks. It is the spec overhead — skylights, sloped glazing — and often the right call for guards and smash-resistant doors.
Locations that usually need it
- Doors and sidelights next to doors
- Glass beside tubs, showers, and pools
- Guards and balcony railings (CAN/CGSB-12.1; openings must not pass a 100 mm sphere)
- Overhead and sloped glass where people walk underneath
- Glass near stairs, ramps, and landings
- Large lites close to a walking surface — many interior windows near the floor
Exact distances, areas, and exceptions live in the current code and depend on the installation. A 1980s house may have annealed glass where a new opening would not. Replacement glass in a hazardous location is spec’d to today’s rules, not to the shard pattern of what came out.
What we will not do
We will not put annealed float back into a shower, a door, a guard, or a skylight because it was cheaper. If the old glass was the wrong type, the replacement is the right type.
Per project
This page is not a code opinion. We confirm each opening against the current BC Building Code. Frameless structural guards need engineer-sealed drawings.
Next step
Send a photo. Get a written range.
Most glass jobs in Metro Vancouver quote from a photograph and two measurements. No obligation.