Privacy Doorglass: Embracing Privacy Without Sacrificing Light
When you need doorglass that is beautiful, functional, and resilient, it might feel like too much to ask for in one product—but not for ODL.
Your front door isn’t just a feature in your home. It welcomes your loved ones and guests, sets the tone for your home’s style, and protects against unwanted intrusion—physical and visual. When you need doorglass that is beautiful, functional, and resilient, it might feel like too much to ask for in one product. This is where ODL enters the picture.
Our catalog of decorative privacy glass has something for everyone: the classic designs you know and love, modern options for the style-forward homeowner, and everything in between. With our extensive catalog of doorglass options for your exterior doors, you can trust your home has the visual protection your family wants and needs. Keep reading to learn more.
PART ONE
ODL’s Approach to Textured Privacy Doorglass
We know how important your home is to you. We don’t cut corners when we develop our textured privacy doorglass, from the initial designs to final installation.
Thoughtful design
Our in-house team of designers carefully consider and select or design textures and patterns using global and local trend data so consumers have plenty of options to choose from when they’re looking for the perfect obscure glass for their home. This focus on emerging trends allows us to offer consumers a robust portfolio of doorglass to choose from when they want to boost their home’s curb appeal.
Global forecasting
As a company with locations worldwide, our design team is continually on the lookout for emerging trends, lasting styles, and features that are making waves in the interior design and doorglass world.Trend reporting
Every design we create is informed by international design trends and reports. In addition to our own market research, our design team receives frequent design trend reports, ensuring ODL’s global leadership.Testing
We believe that it’s not enough to say your product can stand the test of time—we need to be able to prove it. That’s why our products undergo extensive testing, including slam tests, humidity tests, and tests to determine resilience under pressure changes.Severe Weather available
Your home should not only look great and reflect your personal style but be strong enough to protect your home as well. That’s why many of our privacy glass options are also available as Severe Weather impact glass.Thermal performance and Low-E glass
Low-E glass is designed to reduce the flow of heat between your home’s interior and the outdoors. Our Low-E glass options are made using imperceptible metallic coatings and is available in certain privacy glass styles and sizes.Also called obscure glass, privacy glass is specially designed and manufactured glass that uses texture to obscure the line of vision and protect privacy in the home. Privacy glass can also be used in camed, stylized, or stained glass, but these privacy glass options include multiple types of glass rather than one single pane.
What sets obscure glass apart is its minimal look, double-paned construction, and affordable price point. The texture or pattern in privacy glass reduces transparency and visibility, making it an ideal budget-friendly solution for homeowners, builders, and suppliers alike.
The Origin of Privacy Glass
Compared to other types of stylized entry glass (like camed glass), privacy glass is relatively new to the market. Invented in the mid-1800s, privacy glass was made by rolling a texture into a sheet of molten glass. Today, creating a texture on molten glass or adding a pattern to clear glass is just one way to add privacy and visual interest to doorglass. Styles can range from simple pebbling or reeding to elegant geometric patterns. Other popular styles include chinchilla glass, rain glass, and linen patterns.
This glass, which is the same thickness as regular float glass panels, is often used to add a layer of privacy both inside and outside the home. Today, you can find these textured, treated, and patterned glass features in homes—both new and old—across the country.
Patterned Privacy Glass Treatment Methods
Patterned privacy glass is created using different glass treatment methods that apply the pattern, texture or color to the glass in the factory.
The four main methods of glass treatment are silkscreen, acid-etched, sandblasted, and ceramic frit.
- Silkscreen: Ink is applied to the glass in a silk screening process with patterns coming in different opacities, colors, and layers.
- Acid-etched: A patterned screen is applied to the glass before it is submerged in a pool to be chemically treated with hydrofluoric acid.
- Sandblasted: A machine uses highly concentrated air pressure to blast sand on glass to create patterns and designs.
- Ceramic frit: Ceramic fuses are baked onto the surface of the glass with extreme temperatures to permanently fuse the designs and patterns.
Silkscreen
Acid-etched
Sandblasted
Ceramic Frit
Read more: Understanding Types of Glass Treatments for Patterned Glass
Modern Entryway Privacy Glass
Modern obscure glass offers even higher levels of privacy, protection, and style options, with the added benefit of practical features, like severe weather protection and Low-E features. Plus, modern privacy glass is available in a wide variety of designs beyond the traditional pebbled glass so many of us are familiar with.
The Future of Privacy Glass Trends
Modern consumers want and need glass that adds a layer of security to their home without seeming dated or out of step with style trends or their home design. Nature-inspired textures, geometric designs, and even subtle colors are all on the design horizon.
What’s the Difference Between Frosted Glass and Obscure Glass?
Frosted glass is a subcategory of obscure glass. Frosted glass is made by treating clear glass to give it a soft, foggy texture that resembles sea glass.
This can be done through any of the above mentioned glass treatments: sandblasting, acid etching, silk screening, or ceramic frit. Like other types of obscure glass, frosted glass lets in light but not fine details. However, this method relies on treating clear glass, rather than printing a pattern into glass before it hardens to create visual security.
How Is ODL Stylized Privacy Glass Made?
Our stylized privacy glass is made in much the same way as obscure glass was first manufactured in the 1800s—by using machine mechanisms to press patterns into molten glass.
Unlike its predecessors, our privacy glass is double-paned and insulated, giving products unparalleled thermal protection, Low-E performance, and, in some cases, protection against impact and severe weather.
Understand ODL Privacy Glass Ratings
Different homes have different privacy needs. A home with a front door that leads into a living space might want privacy glass with a higher privacy rating compared to a front door that leads into a hallway.
ODL uses a standardized, repeatable test to determine the privacy level of glass. A machine called a spectrophotometer passes light through each section of a glass design. The readings are then used to calculate the exact privacy level:
- Low Privacy
- Medium Privacy
- High Privacy
- Maximum Privacy
What Sets ODL Privacy Glass Apart?
At ODL, we’re not in the business of maintaining the status quo. We are proud to uphold the highest standards of design, manufacturing, and style for our doorglass products. Three features that set our textured privacy glass apart from the competition include:
- Selection: ODL offers the largest selection of decorative and privacy glass in the industry.
- Testing: We’re continually testing our products to ensure they not only hold up to daily use but exceed expectations for what an exceptional product should be.
- Our focus is doorglass: We love glass, plain and simple. ODL’s focus is doorglass and doorglass systems, rather than the entire door. This means consumers, builders, and suppliers benefit from our focused approach to design and manufacturing.
Need More Privacy at Home? There’s a Design for Everyone
Just because your home came with a certain kind of door glass, that doesn’t mean you’re stuck with that design forever. What most people don’t know is that it’s relatively simple and affordable to swap out a glass front door and glass inserts, and with ODL’s wide selection of privacy glass products, we’re sure you’ll find the right glass for your home.
For nearly 80 years, ODL has led the doorglass industry in equipping builders, homeowners, and building suppliers with the highest quality doorglass available on the market. We don’t cut corners at any point in the process: from initial research to product design, doorglass manufacturing to rigorous safety testing. ODL doorglass is thoughtfully crafted and highly rated to withstand soaring temperatures, changes in pressure, impact, visual intrusions, and more.
With ODL products, you can trust your home will not only look beautiful, but be safe in the ways that matter most. And because we offer the largest selection of decorative glass in the industry, we’re sure you’ll find a design you love in our catalog.
Learn More and Shop ODL Severe Weather Glass Online
At ODL, we’ve been designing and manufacturing door glass for generations. Whether you or your customers are on the market for impact glass, the latest textures, low-E products, or leading-edge decorative glass styles, we have the right solution for you. To learn more, browse our decorative glass catalog for our full stylized doorglass offerings.