Written By: Brad Campbell | May 31, 2024
Commercial glass entryway doors serve both functional and aesthetic purposes. They add to the curb appeal of businesses, facilitate high levels of natural light transmission, and provide visibility in storefronts and commercial facilities — but glass doors are, unfortunately, also an extremely vulnerable point in any building’s security.
Any commercial glass door should, at the very least, be strong enough to withstand forced entry attempts, which in turn provides protection against vandalism, burglary, smash-and-grab theft, rioting and looting, storm damage, and even active threats.
Unfortunately, most standard-issue commercial glass entryway doors, even those made from strengthened tempered glass, are not up to the task of protecting your business from a determined intruder looking to gain unauthorized entry to your property.
Tempered safety glass, the most common commercial entryway door glass, easily shatters upon impact. In fact, it’s designed to crumble safely when broken in order to mitigate broken glass hazards, which makes it even more convenient for intruders.
Luckily, there are ways you can reinforce commercial glass doors without breaking the bank. Using the right security glazing solutions, you can turn almost any run-of-the-mill commercial glass entryway door into a glass security door.
If a door has any glass components, large or small, it doesn’t matter how strong its frames, locks, and hinges are — a door is only as secure as its glass.
Standard commercial door glass can be easily shattered, whether it’s by an intentional blow, flying storm debris, or an accidental impact.
During a forced entry attempt, all it takes is one or two blows from a sledgehammer, a pry bar, a brick, or any other heavy object or burglary tool to shatter the glass. This allows intruders to reach through and open the door from the inside or simply step right in through the shattered glass door.
That’s why, in order to secure your property against forced entry, you must protect door glass by placing some type of physical barrier over it, or by replacing the existing glass with forced entry-resistant security glazing, such as ArmorPlast® or Riot Glass®.
Examples of traditional glass door reinforcement measures include things like bars, scissor gates, and shutters. However, while these types of solutions are effective for security, many cities, landlords, and specialty brands do not want such products visible in the storefront.
Additionally, some of these glass door security solutions, like roll-down shutters, only provide after-hours security, protecting the glass from impacts only when the business is closed and the shutters are rolled down and locked into place.
For most businesses and commercial facilities, the top goal is to reinforce door glass without significantly altering its appearance. One way to do so is to apply ArmorPlast retrofit security glazing right on top of the existing glass.
ArmorPlast retrofit security glazing solutions can be fitted into or onto many types of existing commercial door framing systems, creating a virtually unbreakable barrier over the door glass without significantly altering its functionality or appearance.
We typically recommend using entry-level forced entry-resistant ArmorPlast AP25, which is a containment-grade, polycarbonate-based security glazing solution. AP25 provides a glass-like surface hardness and appearance, but has the virtually unbreakable strength of polycarbonate.
The specific formulations of polycarbonates and other plastics used in ArmorPlast glass door reinforcement shields makes them outperform and outlast comparable security glazing products out there, resulting in a highly cost-effective solution to your glass door security concerns.
Because of their unique composition, even forced entry attempts by the most determined would-be intruders will bounce right off of glass doors reinforced with ArmorPlast’s formidable glazing shields.
In addition to reinforcing glass doors, AP25 can also be retrofitted into or onto storefront windows, protecting your entire storefront from threats including forced entry, burglary, smash-and-grab theft, rioting and looting, and more.
This makes AP25 an ideal choice for retail store applications, where there may be large storefront display windows in addition to glass entryway doors, when you want an always-there solution.
You may not be able to retrofit security glazing on top of the existing glass in a certain type of glass entryway door, or you may want to reinforce a glass door with an even more robust, comprehensive solution for better active threat protection. In such cases, we recommend a Riot Glass unbreakable door conversion.
This method of reinforcing a glass door involves replacing the existing glass doors with an entire conversion unit, consisting of ArmorPlast Gen II Series door conversion framing and ArmorPlast AP75 bullet-resistant security glazing infills, which feature a UL 752 Level 1 ballistic resistance rating.
Since these unbreakable glass doors can also stop bullets, they’re ideal for when you want a higher level of active threat protection, making them a popular solution for schools, government buildings, religious facilities, corporate offices, and other more high-risk environments.
Any building’s most vulnerable points are its windows and doors, especially when the doors are made entirely of glass or contain one or more panes of glass that can easily be broken to force entry.
Fortunately, reinforcing glass doors to make them resistant against forced entry and active threats can easily be done with cost-effective solutions like retrofit ArmorPlast security glazing and Riot Glass unbreakable glass door conversion kits.
Contact our security experts today for a complimentary consultation on our formidable glass entryway door security solutions.
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