Custom glass, specified for the house you actually have

This site is a rebuilt custom glass guide for Australian homes. The old customglass.com.au address carried a 2010s shower-screen catalogue. The rebuild keeps the clean paths and throws out the junk. Every page is new writing. We do not republish archive copy, workshop names, or anyone’s quoted words.

The useful question is not “which company is cheapest”. It is “what pane, what edge, what hardware, and which rule applies in this opening”. A kitchen splashback, a frameless shower door, a deck barrier and a bedroom window are different jobs. They share glass chemistry and they do not share the same clause in the National Construction Code.

What “custom” actually means

Custom, here, means the glass is sized and processed for a measured opening. Thickness, heat treatment, interlayer, edgework, holes and cut-outs are chosen for that opening and that use. A splashback that is fully adhered to a wall is not the same specification as a shower door with an exposed edge. A window in an external wall is often a tested assembly under AS 2047, while a frameless door or a balustrade pane is sent to AS 1288.

Homeowners meet those distinctions at the worst moment: after a pane is already in the van. This guide is meant to be read before that. It is written for people briefing a trade, and for trades who want a citability-friendly explainer they can send to a client.

We are not a glazier. We do not hold stock, book installs, or issue compliance documents. If a page sounds like a sales pitch, it has failed.

The rooms this guide covers

Start with the room or the rule, not the brand.

• Kitchen splashbacks — colour, low-iron glass, heat, and the Housing Provisions note that annealed splash-backs are only a path when they are fully backed and continuously adhered.
• Shower screens — framed, semi-frameless and frameless layouts, plus the bathroom human-impact rules in Housing Provisions Part 8.4.
• Balustrades — when a barrier is required, how high it must be, and how AS 1288 sits next to AS/NZS 1170.1.
• Mirrors — bathroom mirrors, wardrobe doors, and the vanity exception in 8.4.6.
• Windows and doors — the AS 2047 / AS 1288 split that NCC Volume One B1D4 actually writes down.
• Safety standards — the long guide to AS 1288, AS/NZS 1170 and the NCC, cited from primary sources.
• Costs — the factors that change a quote. No invented prices.

Heritage paths from the 2019 site still resolve when they were real pages: screen types, framed screens, semi-frameless glass, sliding screens, configurations, accessories, frosted glass, low-iron / Starphire, wall-to-wall doors, warranty questions, and city notes for Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. The gallery is a visual index, not a portfolio of jobs we did not do.

How to read a glass specification

Ask for four things in writing: the glass type (annealed, heat-strengthened, toughened, laminated, or a combination), the nominal thickness, the process standard the pane was tested to, and the NCC clause the installer is relying on. Housing Provisions 8.4.8 requires safety glass to carry a permanent etch or a label that cannot be reused, naming the test standard, the manufacturer or supplier, the grade, the thickness and the type.

If a pane will take a person or a wind load, ask which action was used. Barriers, except a window serving as a barrier, are designed for loading forces in accordance with AS/NZS 1170.1 (Housing Provisions 11.3.4 and 8.3.1). External windows in the AS 2047 set are a different paper trail.

Do not treat a showroom sample as a specification. A painted splashback sample does not tell you whether the installed pane is toughened, whether it is low-iron, or whether it is fully adhered. A frameless shower corner sample does not tell you the channel depth or the hinge capacity.

What we will not invent

This rebuild follows a tight evidence rule. We do not invent prices, opening hours, operators, venues, rankings, awards, events, statistics or quotes. We do not republish named people from the old site. Where a fact is needed, we cite a primary source: Standards Australia for AS 1288, and the Australian Building Codes Board for the NCC.

AS 1288:2021 sets procedures for selecting and installing glass subject to wind loading, human impact and special applications. It does not cover every pane in a house — Standards Australia notes exclusions such as lift cars and furniture glass. The NCC then decides which assemblies use AS 1288 and which use AS 2047.

If a clause has a state variation, we say so and point at the ABCB page. We do not flatten Australia into one bathroom detail.

Who this is for

Homeowners who want to brief a glazier without guessing. Builders and designers who need a clean link for a client. Guest-post editors in the trades and home vertical who need citable, non-sales copy. If you want a booked installer, this is the wrong desk — try a licensed practitioner in the state where the house sits.

The about page explains the rebuild. Contact is an editorial inbox, not a quote form. The guide index holds the longer explainers.

Use the hubs above, then keep the standards page open in another tab. That is the whole method.