Opaque doors provide the highest privacy, but many people want to add glass to a door to allow natural light into the home. Adding glass doesn’t always mean you need to sacrifice privacy. Each piece of glass has a privacy rating that can help you understand how well someone will be able to see into the home.
Rating Scale
Privacy and Decorative glass is rated on a 1-10 scale, where 1 is the least private and 10 is the most private.
Clear glass has a privacy rating of 1 because you can see through it very easily. In the image of clear glass, you can clearly see the picture in the top left corner and the plant in the bottom right.
Granite glass has a privacy rating of 10 because objects are blurred when looking through. In the image of granite glass, the picture and plant are no longer visible.
Clear Glass
Granite Glass
How is it determined?
Determining the privacy level isn’t as easy as you think. The privacy level of a door lite varies in two ways. First, the privacy level of a piece of glass is subjective to the person who is looking through it. To one person, the glass may be a level 4 and to another it may be a level 5. This leads right into the second way privacy ratings vary – decorative glass is comprised of multiple types of glass.
For example, here is Therma-Tru’s decorative glass Blackstone. The center design and edges of the glass are comprised of clear curved bevels while the middle part of the design is comprised of rainglass. Officially, this glass has a privacy rating of 7, but someone may think it’s actually a privacy rating of 6 due to the clear glass around the outside.
Lite Reviews
To help with the privacy level of different glass types, Reeb created Lite Reviews. Looking at a piece of glass in a catalog is two dimensional, but looking at a piece of glass in person, or on video, sometimes gives a different feel to the glass. Lite Reviews provide the ability to share a more detailed look.
Click here to see the Premium Fiberglass Lite Reviews.
Click here to see the Standard Fiberglass Lite Reviews.
