AS 1288 safety glass rules in Hobart.
Two questions come up on nearly every glass job in Hobart: does this location legally need safety glass, and does the work need a permit? The answers are more settled than most people expect. Here they are in plain terms, including what changes when the house is heritage listed or sits in one of Hobart’s heritage precincts.
Which locations legally need safety glass.
AS 1288 is the Australian Standard for glass in buildings, covering selection and installation, and it is called up by the National Construction Code. It is not guidance. It is the rule the work is measured against, and it is written around human impact: the places where a person can walk into, fall against or put a hand through the glass.
The short list that catches most homes: all glass in doors and in the fixed side panels beside doors, any pane where the glass comes within 500mm of the floor, all glass in a bathroom or ensuite within 2 metres of the floor, every part of a shower enclosure or bath surround, and glass in low balustrades. In those locations the glass must be Grade A safety glass, meaning toughened or laminated to AS/NZS 2208, and it must carry a permanent mark identifying it. Plain annealed float in any of those spots is non-compliant regardless of what was there before.
Grade A safety glass comes in two forms and they behave differently when they fail. Toughened glass is heat treated so it is four to five times stronger and, when it does go, it breaks into blunt granules rather than shards. Laminated glass has a plastic interlayer bonded between two panes, so when it breaks it cracks but holds together in the frame. Both satisfy AS 1288. Which one is right depends on the opening, and on heritage homes it very often ends up being laminated for reasons covered further down.
The trap in older Hobart homes.
This one catches a lot of owners of older Hobart homes. Existing non-compliant glass is generally allowed to stay under grandfathering, but the moment you replace a pane you are doing new glazing work and the current standard applies to that pane. So a 1920s back door with original plain float can legally sit there for another decade, but if it breaks the replacement must be Grade A safety glass. A glazier who quietly refits plain float to match is saving you money by leaving you with non-compliant work.
Given how much of the housing stock in Battery Point, West Hobart, North Hobart and Sandy Bay predates the standard entirely, this comes up constantly. It is also the single most common corner cut in the trade, because plain float is stocked, cheap and can be cut on the van, while a compliant toughened pane has to be made to order and costs three to five hundred dollars more. That price gap is exactly why the shortcut is tempting and exactly why you should ask the question.
How to check what you already have.
Look in the corners of the pane for a permanent mark, usually a small sandblasted or ceramic-fired stamp naming the maker and the standard. Toughened glass is marked in a corner, and laminated glass often carries a mark too. If there is no mark anywhere on the pane, assume it is plain annealed float. Another clue in old Hobart houses is the glass itself: a slight wave, ripple or distortion in the reflection almost always means old float or cylinder glass, and that is never safety glass.
The permit question, answered properly.
For straight like-for-like glass replacement, generally no permit is needed. Under the Building Act 2016 and the Director's Determination that sets the categories of building work in Tasmania, replacing a broken pane in an existing opening is ordinarily maintenance rather than notifiable or permit work. What changes the answer is changing the opening: making a window bigger, cutting a new opening, converting a window to a door, or altering the structure around it. Those steps can push the job into notifiable work or a full building permit, so check with your council before you commit.
Which council depends on where you are, and greater Hobart is split across several. The City of Hobart covers the CBD and the western suburbs up the mountain. Glenorchy City Council covers Glenorchy, Moonah and north to Claremont. Clarence City Council has the eastern shore including Bellerive and Howrah. Kingborough Council covers Kingston and Blackmans Bay, and Brighton Council picks up Bridgewater and Old Beach. They administer the same state legislation, but their planning schemes and heritage overlays differ, so the answer for a Battery Point terrace is not the answer for a Kingston project home.
Worked example: two doors, two different jobs.
A back door pane in a 1930s New Town home breaks, inside the City of Hobart local government area. Same size, same opening, replaced with a Grade A toughened pane at roughly 380 dollars supplied and fitted on 2026 rates, sitting in the standard 350 to 750 dollar toughened band. No permit, no council involvement, done in days. Now the same owner decides that while the glazier is there, the door should become a wider glazed opening onto the deck. That is a structural change to the opening, it needs the council conversation and potentially a building permit, and the glass is now the small part of the project. Same house, same wall, completely different regulatory path, and the difference is whether the opening changed.
Heritage: a different approval, the same standard.
Heritage changes the approval path, not the safety standard. If the property is on the Tasmanian Heritage Register or sits in a heritage precinct under the local provisions of the planning scheme, works to the building fabric can need approval from Heritage Tasmania or the council before you start. But AS 1288 still applies to the glass itself, so a heritage door still needs Grade A safety glass. In practice that usually means laminated rather than toughened, because laminated can be made to look far closer to the original and keeps the sightlines the heritage assessment cares about.
That laminated-over-toughened choice is one of the genuinely useful things a Hobart glazier knows that a mainland one might not, simply because we deal with it weekly. The heritage sash reglazing guide goes into the detail of how that work is actually done, and the shower screens page covers the wet-area side of AS 1288 where the rules are strictest of all.
Frequently asked questions.
Do I need a building permit to replace glass in Hobart?
For straight like-for-like glass replacement, generally no. Under the Building Act 2016 and the Director's Determination that sets the categories of building work in Tasmania, replacing a broken pane in an existing opening is ordinarily maintenance rather than notifiable or permit work. What changes the answer is changing the opening: making a window bigger, cutting a new opening, converting a window to a door, or altering the structure around it. Those steps can push the job into notifiable work or a full building permit, so check with your council before you commit.
Which windows must have safety glass under AS 1288?
The short list that catches most homes: all glass in doors and in the fixed side panels beside doors, any pane where the glass comes within 500mm of the floor, all glass in a bathroom or ensuite within 2 metres of the floor, every part of a shower enclosure or bath surround, and glass in low balustrades. In those locations the glass must be Grade A safety glass, meaning toughened or laminated to AS/NZS 2208, and it must carry a permanent mark identifying it. Plain annealed float in any of those spots is non-compliant regardless of what was there before.
The old glass in my Hobart house is not safety glass. Can it just be replaced like for like?
No, and this catches a lot of owners of older Hobart homes. Existing non-compliant glass is generally allowed to stay under grandfathering, but the moment you replace a pane you are doing new glazing work and the current standard applies to that pane. So a 1920s back door with original plain float can legally sit there for another decade, but if it breaks the replacement must be Grade A safety glass. A glazier who quietly refits plain float to match is saving you money by leaving you with non-compliant work.
How do I tell if my existing glass is safety glass?
Look in the corners of the pane for a permanent mark, usually a small sandblasted or ceramic-fired stamp naming the maker and the standard. Toughened glass is marked in a corner, and laminated glass often carries a mark too. If there is no mark anywhere on the pane, assume it is plain annealed float. Another clue in old Hobart houses is the glass itself: a slight wave, ripple or distortion in the reflection almost always means old float or cylinder glass, and that is never safety glass.
Does a heritage listing change what glass I can use?
It changes the approval path, not the safety standard. If the property is on the Tasmanian Heritage Register or sits in a heritage precinct under the local provisions of the planning scheme, works to the building fabric can need approval from Heritage Tasmania or the council before you start. But AS 1288 still applies to the glass itself, so a heritage door still needs Grade A safety glass. In practice that usually means laminated rather than toughened, because laminated can be made to look far closer to the original and keeps the sightlines the heritage assessment cares about.
Keep reading.
More plain guides for Hobart homeowners:
Not sure if your glass is compliant?
Send the quote form with a photo of the opening and a close-up of any corner mark. We will tell you what the standard requires for that location before we quote it.