Screen type is a structure decision, not a style quiz

is one of the cleanest heritage URLs on the old site. It deserved a real document. This is that document. It is longer than a hub because people use “type” to mean three different things: the metal, the door, and the glass.

Housing Provisions 8.4.6 does not contain the words framed, semi-frameless or frameless as marketing nouns. It contains framed panels and panels or doors with any edge exposed. Keep those two piles on the bench while you look at pictures.

Framed — the grid is doing work

A framed screen puts aluminium (or another metal) around the glass and usually across some of the joints. The frame helps the pane, hides an arrised edge, and gives silicone a straight channel. It can be the right answer in a rental, a tight alcove, or any opening where the walls will not forgive a frameless channel.

Framed panels, when 8.4.6 applies, are glazed with Grade A safety glazing to Table 8.4.2. That table lists toughened, laminated and some annealed limits. Read the row. Do not assume “framed means 4 mm is fine” without the area.

The framed screen guide is the sibling. This page only needs you to remember: the grid is structure and finish, not an excuse to skip the table.

Semi-frameless — a perimeter with glass doors

Semi-frameless usually keeps a frame on the outer edges and lets the door and inlines read as glass. It is a compromise that is honest when it is specified as one. It is a mess when the door is treated as frameless and the inlines as picture-frame glass with no conversation about exposed edges.

Ask which edges are exposed. If any edge is exposed, 8.4.6(b) wants toughened safety glass to Table 8.4.6 with a minimum nominal thickness of 6 mm. If the door is fully framed, you may still be in Table 8.4.2. The installer should be able to point at the row. Semi-frameless glass walks the hardware.

Frameless — the metal gets out of the photo

Frameless screens use channels, clamps, hinges, pivots or a sliding track. The glass does more of the spanning. That is why people reach for thicker panes. Thickness is still a design output, not a personality trait. Unsupported height, hinge type, and whether the door is walking on a rail all matter.

Exposed-edge shower doors sit in Table 8.4.6, not in the 10 mm unframed-door sentence in 8.4.2 — that 10 mm rule is for unframed doors other than those in shower screens or bath enclosures. Mixing those sentences is a common error. Do not make it.

Doorless and wet-room screens

A fixed pane with no door is still a shower screen under 8.4.6 if it is a shower screen in that clause. Water management becomes the whole design: tray, fall, and where the spray actually goes. A beautiful 1200 mm return that soaks the vanity is not a type. It is a failed layout. Configurations covers alcove, corner, neo-angle and walk-in.

Sliding versus hinged as a “type”

Sliding is a door type, not a third family. It exists in framed, semi and frameless. The sliding guide is about track, bypass and the way a slider fails when the wall is out of plumb. Hinged and pivot doors fail differently: they need space to swing and hinges that match the pane weight.

Privacy glass is not a type of screen

Acid-etch, sandblast, film, decorative interlayer, and frosted make-up change what you see. They do not move you to a different table by themselves. A frosted framed pane is still a framed pane.

How to write the type on a request for quote

Write: family, door, number of panes, tray or hob, and “framed Table 8.4.2” or “exposed-edge Table 8.4.6”. Add wall conditions. Add whether you want a coating. Do not write “modern frameless or similar”. Similar is how specifications die.

Costs will move with family and hardware. Safety standards keeps the tables in one place. The comparison guide is the long argument if two people in the house have already picked a side.

This site will not pick a side. It will keep the clause in the middle of the table.

Field note on screen types (1)

Type is metal. Configuration is plan. Door is action. Keep those nouns apart.

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 screen types (2)

Type is metal. Configuration is plan. Door is action. Keep those nouns apart.

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 screen types (3)

Type is metal. Configuration is plan. Door is action. Keep those nouns apart.

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 screen types (4)

Type is metal. Configuration is plan. Door is action. Keep those nouns apart.

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 screen types (5)

Type is metal. Configuration is plan. Door is action. Keep those nouns apart.

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.