Text 02Anti-Graffiti Film Washington

It takes the damage instead of the glass. Anti-graffiti film is a clear sheet bonded to the surface, so spray paint, scribing tools and acid etching go into the film rather than the pane. Film made for this job is designed to be removed easily and replaced quickly, so the marked sheet comes off and the glass underneath is uncovered unmarked. You are replacing a film, not a made-to-measure window.

Less work than a glazing job, because the glass stays in its frame and there is nothing to measure, order or lift into place. The actual time comes down to how many panes are affected, how large they are and how they are reached, so the business doing the work is the one to ask for a figure.

It moves the cost from the glass to the film. Commercial glazing is made to measure, so one scored or etched pane means ordering a replacement unit and living with that frontage until it arrives. With a sacrificial sheet in place, the thing you replace after an incident is a sheet of film. What that costs for your building is a question for the dealer who quotes the work, not something Kepler can price for you.

The names get used loosely, so ask what a film is built to do rather than what it is called. Anti-graffiti film is a surface layer: it answers marking, scratching and etching, and it is meant to be replaced. Films sold as anti-vandalism or security are usually thicker and aimed at what happens when the glass itself is struck. Different problems, and they are sometimes specified together.

By design, and that is the point of it. Graffiti film is the one type of safety and security film meant to be sacrificial: it is made to be removed easily and replaced quickly, rather than to stay put for the life of the pane. That is what separates it from a permanent film, and it is why the same window can be covered again after the next incident. The installer lifts the marked sheet and applies a new one to the same glass.

It goes on the face that gets attacked. For a storefront window that is usually the outside; for an elevator car, a mirror or a restroom partition it is the inside. Which side suits your glass, and whether the film specified is rated for that position, is something the installer confirms once they have seen it.

Scribing tools and acid work into the surface of the glass itself, which is why a marked pane usually ends up being replaced rather than cleaned up. Film gives you a third option. The damage stays in a layer that was put there to take it, and clearing it is a film change rather than a glazing order and a boarded frontage while you wait.

Safety and security window film does a different job: it is there for the moment a pane is broken, not for what someone writes on it. Kepler lists K-Shield as an 8 mil safety and security film designed to help hold shattered glass together while adding UV protection. Thickness on its own does not give a film a forced-entry or blast rating, since the glass, the frame and the fixings all count, so ask your dealer what a proposed assembly has actually been tested for.