Text 02Safety & Security Window Film Colorado

It is a thick film applied to glass you already have. Kepler's version is K-Shield, an 8 mil safety and security film that bonds to the pane and is designed to help hold shattered glass together while adding UV protection. The glass can still break. What changes is what the broken pane does next, and how long it takes to make an opening in it.

Once the film is bonded to the glass, a broken pane tends to stay together instead of dropping out, so the hole an intruder wants does not appear on the first blow. That is a delay, not a barrier: given enough time and effort, filmed glass can still be got through. Kepler publishes no forced-entry rating for K-Shield, so treat it as one layer alongside locks, lighting and an alarm.

Treat it as you would the glass, with a softer touch. Clean it with a soft cloth or squeegee and a mild cleaner that does not contain ammonia, and keep abrasive pads and scrapers away from the surface.

Ask the dealer who fits it how long to leave the film before its first clean, and what they recommend using on it.

Tempered glass is made to break into small pieces, so the whole pane lets go at once. Film holds those pieces together, but it is only bonded to the visible area of the glass, with the edges hidden in the frame. Kepler therefore advises a bonding adhesive around the perimeter on tempered glazing, so the filmed pane is held to the frame and not only to itself. The dealer specifies this after looking at your frames.

For heat and glare on the same building, see our commercial window tinting page.

Laminated glass already has an interlayer bonded between two panes, so it is built to hold together when it breaks. Adding K-Shield puts a further bonded layer on the inside of the pane, which is a common approach where the existing laminate is thin or where the UV protection is wanted as well. Because the interlayer does much of the retention work, the edge treatment is usually simpler.

Thickness is only part of the answer. The film has to suit the glass it is going on, the frame that glass sits in and the risk you are treating, and it has to be fitted cleanly to the edges of the pane. K-Shield is Kepler's 8 mil option and stays clear, so the glazing still looks like glazing.

The wider Kepler architectural range is set out on our Kepler Experience page.

Partly, and it depends where the damage happens. K-Shield is fitted on the interior face of the glass, so it works on impact and breakage rather than on marks made to the external surface. Scratching, etching and spray paint all land on the outside of the pane, where a security film cannot reach them. That is the job of anti-graffiti film, which is applied to the external surface instead. If defacement rather than break-ins is the problem, our anti-graffiti films page covers the film made for external surface damage.

In practice they are the same family of product. Both are thicker than a solar film and both are there to keep a broken pane together; safety tends to describe accidental breakage and security a deliberate attack. K-Shield covers both, and the real specification questions are thickness and how the film is finished at the edges.

Shading, glare control and privacy are a different range, set out on our commercial window tinting page.

Annealed glass breaks into larger shards rather than granules, and a filmed annealed pane tends to keep its shape in the opening. That makes a perimeter bond less critical than it is on tempered glazing, though it is still worth discussing on large panes or where the risk is higher. Either way the reinforcement comes from the film staying bonded across the glass.

For shading and privacy films, visit our commercial window tinting page.

It depends on the glass. Kepler advises a perimeter bond on tempered glazing, where the pane fails all at once and can be pushed out of the frame with the film still attached to it. On annealed and laminated glass the pane holds more of its own shape, so the bond is optional, though it still adds something where the risk is higher. This is a decision for the dealer looking at your frames rather than one to settle in advance.

To start an enquiry, use our find a tinter page.