Glazing: safety regs?

[LooneyTunes]

One job that I've been putting off for a while is to change a pane of glass in the garage.

Spoke to local glass suppliers and they reckon that if the glass will be above 1800mm from the ground then it needs to be toughened. This seems strange to me as the risk of breakage is surely lower if the pane is out of reach (and is at odds with a random Building Regs notice I found online which suggests it is low level glazing that needs to be safety glass).

So, three questions for the experts if I may:

1) Do the guidelines require high level glass to be safety glass?
2) Do they apply to old free-standing garages?
3) What, if any, are the issues relating to non-compliance?

(no problem if the advice is needs to be toughened BTW, just apparently means I need to wait 2 weeks for the glass to be sent away?)

Thanks in advance for any info/advice!

[h4rvy]

Basically everything below 800mm or alongside a door needs to be toughened

[LooneyTunes]

That was quick, thanks!

Does it make a difference if it's a garage rather than a house?

[rsv gone!]

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/BR_PDF...

[Blakeatron]

If its for a garage then maybe a laminated glass would be good - bit of extra security.

[Pcot]

Laminated glass is 'safety glass', and your supplier should keep that in stock.

[LooneyTunes]

Thanks - sounds like laminated is the way to go then if they'll have this in stock. It's only a small pane so can't imagine it will be that expensive.

[MJG280]

In a house I replace any broken glass with laminated. Not that nuch more expensive, better security and noise reduction aling with it lets less heat out.

[LooneyTunes]

Job done.

Local outfit cut me some laminate whilst I waited - and ended up costing less than toughened... so a good result.