5 Big Issues In The Glass Market Today & How Opaci-Coat-300® Solves Them

The goal for most product manufacturers is to provide a solution to a problem. To begin, market studies are conducted, research and development activated, and the expected (hopeful) outcome is an extremely useful product that will ease a market concern and satisfy a need.

In the glass and glazing industry the spandrel area is ever-evolving. It’s a slice of the building that serves a major aesthetic purpose for the facade design team, but also garners concerns with regarding strength, fallout resistance, and overall building energy modeling. With these topics in mind, we’ve decided to run down the five biggest issues in regards to spandrel and the solutions OPACI-COAT-300® provides.

1. Glass Strength Naturally you want strong and reliable products in your building – but even more within the spandrel area because of the potential for heat gain of your spandrel glass and thermal gradients which can cause glass to shatter. It has long been demonstrated that some coatings applied to glass result in weakened glass, coupled with heat buildup and thermal gradients, resulting in breakage. Simply said- OPACI-COAT-300® is an elastomeric glass coating that does not weaken the glass. In fact, just the opposite happens which leads us to…

2. Fallout Resistance So with any tempered glass product, a concern is fallout resistance. The possibility of either a spontaneous break or a weakened glass break can lead to glass pieces falling from a building and endangering those below. OPACI-COAT 300® holds the glass in place in case of breakage due to how well it bonds to the glass and its’ elastomeric (rubber-like) nature. All of this has been tested and verified as well as demonstrated for over 30 years in the market – an example is shown in the video above.

3. All About Colors With growing color customization options from the framing industry, the need to get that “perfect” color of harmonized or color-pop spandrel continues to grow. One of the areas where ICD High Performance Coatings is best known is providing exceptional color matching – that includes bright reds and yellows that designers over the years have been told can’t be done. Trust me, it can… and we’re talking virtually any color, not just a few Standard Colors!

4. Get Those Colors Living in Harmony This has two parts to it. One is the ability to harmonize the glass colors on the building giving the architect a seamless transition between the vision and spandrel areas – we call this facade visual harmonization, and the other part is color shift prevention. By applying OPACI-COAT-300® after tempering, the resulting cured color is more predictable, virtually eliminating mismatched color variation scattered across the project. Also, this product has an incredible history of 30+ years in the field!

5. Sustainability Rules! Hey, more and more people truly get that we HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF OUR ENVIRONMENT! Sorry for yelling, but it’s true, and being able to specify and utilize products that do not contain lead, hazardous materials or heavy metals is something Mother Nature (and all who encounter this product – production employees and end-users) can appreciate! At our core we believe in creating coatings that make working and living environments healthier, OPACI-COAT-300® is one of the products that live and breath this mission.

These are some of the issues we today – tomorrow surely will pose others. Are you experiencing something in the spandrel area that has you concerned? Drop us a line, we’re ready to help. 360-546-2286

Want to learn more about OPACI-COAT-300®? Register for an online webinar course here.