Posts by Mike Snyder

The question gets asked as an either/or, and it isn’t one. Insulated glass and laminated glass describe two different things — one is how lites are assembled into a unit, the other is how a single lite is built — and a large share of commercial glazing is both at once. Getting the distinction right…

Commercial glass replacement looks like a simple transaction and rarely is. The glass in a curtain wall, storefront, skylight, or railing is part of an engineered assembly, and replacing one lite means matching a specification that may be twenty years old, working at height on an occupied building, and restoring performance the original design depended…

An entrance canopy is one bay. A covered walkway is sixty. That difference is the whole design problem. Decisions that barely register over a single doorway — how much the assembly weighs, how far it spans, how many supports it needs — compound across every bay of a long run until they govern the budget,…

A glass canopy is the most scrutinized twenty feet of a building. It’s at eye level, it’s the first thing anyone touches, and it’s the element most likely to be judged on appearance and remembered for performance. It’s also a roof, cantilevered over the one place a building can least afford to drip, ice over,…

“How big can it be” is the first question on almost every atrium, natatorium, and lobby project, and it doesn’t have a single answer. The honest one is that size isn’t a product limit — it’s the output of four variables working against each other. Here’s what actually governs it. The Short Answer How Big…

The words describe the same object, glass in a roof, but they refer to two different product categories with different governing standards, different engineering, and different failure consequences. Knowing which one a project needs is usually obvious. Knowing why is what keeps the wrong one from getting specified. The Core Distinction What’s the Difference Between…