A mirror is glass that happens to have a silvered face

Mirrors get specified last and broken first. Someone picks a size from a photo, a pane arrives with a clip, and only later does anyone ask whether the bathroom clause, the door clause, or “it is just furniture” applies. This hub keeps those three buckets separate.

We do not sell mirrors. We do not have a warehouse of bevels. The longer guide is the place for the vanity detail.

The bathroom vanity path

Housing Provisions 8.4.6 covers kitchens, bathrooms, ensuites and spa rooms. It allows monolithic annealed glass for mirrors, provided a fixed vanity or bench with a height of not less than 760 mm, a depth of not less than 300 mm, and extending the full width of the mirror, is located in front of the mirror.

Read that as a guard, not as décor. A 400 mm shelf under a 1800 mm-wide pane is not the path. A floating timber rail is not a vanity. A mirror that continues past the basin and down to a tiled plinth needs someone to say whether the bench still qualifies for the whole pane.

If the vanity path does not apply, the rest of 8.4.6 does: framed Grade A safety glazing to Table 8.4.2, or exposed-edge toughened glass to Table 8.4.6 at a minimum 6 mm. A frameless bathroom mirror with polished edges and no bench in front is an exposed-edge conversation.

Doors that happen to be mirrors

8.4.2 is blunt: glass in doors must be Grade A safety glazing material in accordance with Table 8.4.2, with listed exceptions for some leadlights, small annealed pieces, and bathroom doors that are sent to 8.4.6. A mirrored wardrobe door is still a door. A mirrored cavity slider is still a door. Do not talk yourself into “furniture” because the pane has a film on the back.

Unframed doors other than shower or bath enclosures must be toughened safety glass with a minimum nominal thickness of 10 mm, or laminated toughened safety glass with a minimum total thickness of 10 mm (8.4.2). That sentence is why wall-to-wall doors live on their own page.

Furniture versus fabric

Standards Australia’s public note on AS 1288:2021 lists furniture glass among the things the standard does not cover. A free-standing cheval mirror that is genuinely furniture is not this guide’s job. A mirror that is silicone’d to a stud wall, set in a rebate, or hung as a full-height panel in a circulation space is building work. If people can walk into it, also read 8.4.4 and 8.4.7 on panels that can be mistaken for openings and on making glass visible.

Silvering, safety film and “unbreakable”

A silvered face does not make annealed glass safe. A security film is not automatically Grade A safety glazing. If someone offers a film as the entire strategy, ask which row of Table 8.4.2 they claim and how the pane will be marked under 8.4.8. We will not invent a film specification.

Demisting pads and cabinet doors add heat and hinges. They do not remove the location test. A mirrored cabinet door over a basin is still in a bathroom.

What to measure before you buy

Width of the bench, depth of the bench, height of the bench, width of the proposed glass, and whether any part of the glass sits beside the bench rather than behind it. Then decide if you want a single pane or a joint. Then ask about the substrate — moisture-resistant lining, not a hope.

Costs will mention size, shape, silvering quality, safety glass, and removal of an old pane. Still no prices. If you came here from the old catalogue’s bathroom-mirror blurb, this is the replacement: a clause, not a showroom.

Field note on mirrors (1)

Measure the vanity against the pane. Silvering does not choose the table.

Keep Housing Provisions 8.4 open if people can hit the glass. Keep Part 11.3 open if people can fall. Keep B1D4 open if you are arguing about AS 2047 versus AS 1288. Then write the clause on the request for quote and let a licensed practitioner correct you.

This site will not invent a price, a ranking, an operator or a statistic to decorate that loop. If you need a guest-post citation, cite the ABCB or Standards Australia page, not a memory of this paragraph. If you need a pane on Friday, you need a glazier, not another sentence from an editorial desk.

Unknown URLs on this domain are a real 404. Messy heritage paths 301 once. Clean paths, including this one, keep real writing so a backlink lands on a document instead of a parked page.

Field note on mirrors (2)

Measure the vanity against the pane. Silvering does not choose the table.

Keep Housing Provisions 8.4 open if people can hit the glass. Keep Part 11.3 open if people can fall. Keep B1D4 open if you are arguing about AS 2047 versus AS 1288. Then write the clause on the request for quote and let a licensed practitioner correct you.

This site will not invent a price, a ranking, an operator or a statistic to decorate that loop. If you need a guest-post citation, cite the ABCB or Standards Australia page, not a memory of this paragraph. If you need a pane on Friday, you need a glazier, not another sentence from an editorial desk.

Unknown URLs on this domain are a real 404. Messy heritage paths 301 once. Clean paths, including this one, keep real writing so a backlink lands on a document instead of a parked page.