Commercial mirror · Fabricate, deliver and install
Commercial mirrors
for retail and gyms
Retail fitting rooms, gym and studio walls, washroom vanities, lobby features and etched glass signage. Copper free mirror, safety backed where it has to be, cut and installed by one licensed subcontractor.
Florida license
SCC131154568
Counties served
Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade
Commercial bids
From 48 hours
Shop drawings
Produced in house
What we cover
The only glass on the job that people touch every day
A mirror is one of the cheapest items in a glass package and the first thing anybody notices when it goes wrong. It gets leaned on, wiped with the wrong chemical twice a day and it usually lives in the most humid room in the building. Whether it still looks new in five years is decided before it is ordered, by the silvering, the backing and how the bottom edge is protected.
- Retail fitting room and dressing room mirrors, full height
- Gym, studio and dance walls in continuous runs
- Washroom and locker room vanity mirrors, set to the accessible height
- Lobby and feature mirrors, including antique and tinted
- Backlit LED mirrors and etched glass signage
Where it goes
The room decides the mirror, not the budget
The same sheet of mirror behaves completely differently in a dry office and in a locker room. This is the conversation worth having before anything is ordered.
Office, lobby and retail
Washroom and locker room
Gym and studio wall
What it has to survive
Office, lobby and retail
Dry air, daily glass cleaner and the occasional shoulder. This is the easy case.
Washroom and locker room
Standing humidity, splash along the bottom edge, and cleaning chemicals sprayed straight at the joint every night.
Gym and studio wall
Sweat, impact, chalk and people falling into it. Here the mirror is part of the safety story, not just the finish.
What we specify
Office, lobby and retail
One quarter inch first grade mirror. Low iron where the color of what it reflects matters, which in retail it usually does.
Washroom and locker room
Copper free silvering. The copper layer in a conventional mirror sets up a galvanic cell, and once moisture reaches it the silver goes.
Gym and studio wall
Copper free as well, and never thinner than one quarter inch across a long run.
The backing
Office, lobby and retail
The standard two coat backing paint is enough.
Washroom and locker room
Two coat lead free backing with the cut edges sealed, because the edge is where it starts.
Gym and studio wall
Safety backing film bonded to the back, so a broken mirror holds together instead of coming down in sheets.
How it is held
Office, lobby and retail
J metal at head and sill, or mirror mastic with clips where the wall is true.
Washroom and locker room
J metal with the bottom leg held clear of the counter, so water does not sit against the edge.
Gym and studio wall
Continuous channel top and bottom, mechanically fixed. Nothing here relies on adhesive alone.
What goes wrong
Office, lobby and retail
Very little, unless somebody cleans it with an ammonia product that runs down into the joint and sits there.
Washroom and locker room
Black edge. It starts as a dark line along the bottom and works inward, and it cannot be repaired.
Gym and studio wall
Waves in the reflection from a wall that was never flat, and joints that open up as the building moves.
On the record
Two mall fit outs, as they were specified
Both at The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens, both to a national retailer’s corporate standard, both under a general contractor. No photographs here on purpose: what we have of these two jobs are progress shots, and the specification is the part that is worth reading anyway.
Lululemon, The Gardens Mall
General contractor: Davaco
A mirror replacement inside a store that stayed open, so every panel had to drop into frames that were already on the wall. The interesting part is the specification rather than the size.
Mirror
One quarter inch clear first grade, polished on all sides
Silvering
UltraMirror copper free, specified against edge corrosion
Backing
Safety back membrane on every panel
Fit
Cut to drop into the existing frames
Adhesive
Mirror specific adhesive, compatible with the backing
Victoria's Secret, The Gardens Mall
General contractor: Management Resource Systems
Ten mirrors to a corporate layout: eight full height on the wall and two mounted on dressing room doors. The doors are the harder half, because a door mirror takes a knock every time somebody uses it.
Wall mirrors
Eight full height, one quarter inch clear first grade
Trim
J metal at head and sill, for support and alignment
Door mirrors
Two door mounted, L metal at the base for edge protection
Also supplied
A glass unit cut and fitted on site so the store kept trading
How they die
Mirrors fail from the edge in
The silver on the back of a mirror is a few atoms thick, and all that protects it is the backing paint and the seal on the cut edge. Moisture and cleaning chemicals do not attack the middle of a mirror. They wick in at the bottom edge and work sideways, which is why the first symptom is always a dark line along the bottom and never a spot out in the middle of it. It cannot be polished out and it cannot be repaired. The only real fix happens before it goes up: the right silvering, a sealed edge, and a fixing that keeps water off it.
Fixing
Four ways a mirror stays on the wall
Mirrors come down for one of two reasons: the adhesive was wrong for the backing, or nothing mechanical was holding the bottom. These are the four we use and when each one is the right answer.
J metal and L metal
The commercial default
A J channel at the head and another at the sill carries the weight and keeps a long run aligned. Where a mirror is mounted on a door, an L metal at the base protects the edge from the knock it takes every time the door closes. That is exactly how the Victoria’s Secret mirrors went in.
Mastic and clips
Adhesive, plus something mechanical
Mirror specific mastic bonds the panel and clips carry it if the mastic ever lets go. The mastic has to be compatible with the mirror backing: the wrong one attacks the paint and leaves a stain that shows through from the front, and by then the mirror is finished.
Continuous channel
For a whole wall of mirror
A studio or gym run sits in a continuous channel top and bottom and is fixed mechanically. Nothing on a wall that people fall into is held up by adhesive alone.
Standoffs and cleats
When the mirror floats
A feature mirror in a lobby can stand off the wall on hardware or hang on a French cleat, which leaves a shadow gap and no visible fixing. It needs a wall that is genuinely flat, and the fixings have to be designed before the glass is cut.
Code and access
A mirror is glass, and the code knows it
Two things get checked on a commercial mirror and neither of them is about the reflection. The first is whether it counts as safety glazing, because the code names mirrors specifically. The second is how high the bottom edge sits, which is what makes it usable by everybody who walks into the room.
Hazardous locations
Florida Building Code Section 2406 covers glass mirrors by name. A mirror in a door, beside a door, or low enough for somebody to walk into is a hazardous location and has to comply like any other glazing on the job.
ADA 603.3
Over a lavatory or a counter, the bottom edge of the reflecting surface goes 40 inches maximum above the finished floor. Where there is nothing under it, 35 inches maximum. The advisory adds a top edge at 74 inches minimum so one mirror serves everybody.
Safety backing
Where somebody could fall into it, the answer is a film bonded to the back so a break holds together instead of coming down. Gyms, studios, stairwells and the back of doors are the usual candidates, and it is cheap compared to the alternative.
Where they go
Six rooms, six different mirrors
A mirror is not one product. What belongs in a fitting room is not what belongs in a locker room, and neither one is what goes on a gym wall. These are the rooms we get called about.
Before we quote
What a mirror schedule has to tell us
Mirrors get priced off a schedule far more often than off a drawing, and a thin schedule is the reason a mirror package gets re-quoted three times. This is everything we need to give you a number that holds.
- Location and room type, because the room decides the silvering
- Finished size of each mirror, or the opening if it drops into a frame
- Thickness, or leave it to us to specify from the span
- Whether safety backing is required, and who is calling for it
- Edge finish: flat polished, seamed or beveled, and the bevel width
- How it is fixed, and what the wall behind it is actually made of
- Any holes, notches or cutouts, dimensioned from a fixed edge
- Whether the space is trading, because that decides the working hours
How we run the job
Cut once, because a mirror cannot be trimmed on site
Every hole and every notch happens before the mirror leaves the shop. Once the backing is on there is nothing left to adjust in the field, which is why the measure matters more here than the install.
01
Read the schedule
We take the sizes, the rooms and the fixing method off your schedule and tell you where the specification and the room do not agree.
02
Field measure
Taken after tile, paint and countertops, because a mirror sits tight to finished surfaces and those surfaces move right up until they are done.
03
Specify and confirm
Silvering, thickness, backing and edge finish, agreed in writing before anything is cut.
04
Fabricate
Cut, edged, and any holes made in the shop. After the backing goes on, nothing about the panel can be changed.
05
Set and protect
Fixed, aligned across the whole run, and left covered if other trades are still working in the room.
Systems and hardware
Eight manufacturers, one point of contact
We buy mirror direct. That is how a copper free product gets specified by name on a schedule, instead of whatever the supplier happened to have on the rack that week.
The record
Mirror work we have completed
Named jobs from the portfolio, commercial and residential, updated as they finish.
Prequalification
Everything your precon team asks for, in one packet
You should not have to chase a subcontractor for paperwork. Ask once and the whole packet comes back from this office, not from a portal.
- Certificate of insurance, issued to your entity
- W-9 and Florida license SCC131154568
- Project references with general contractor contacts
- Mirror schedule priced line by line, with the silvering named
- Commercial bids from 48 hours, residential estimates same day
Questions general contractors ask
Commercial mirrors, answered
Why does a mirror go black around the edge?
Because moisture and cleaning chemicals get under the backing at the cut edge and oxidize the silver, then work inward. It shows up first as a dark line along the bottom, which is the edge closest to the water. It cannot be polished out and it cannot be repaired, so the answer is copper free silvering and a sealed edge before it goes up, not a fix afterwards.
What is a copper free mirror and do I need one?
A conventional mirror carries a copper layer over the silver. That copper sets up a galvanic cell, and once moisture reaches it the silver starts to go. Copper free silvering leaves the copper out. In a dry office it is a nice to have. In a washroom, a locker room or a gym it is the difference between a mirror that lasts and one you replace.
When is safety backing required?
Anywhere somebody could fall into the mirror: gyms and studios, stairwells, the back of doors, schools. It is a film bonded to the back so a break holds together instead of coming down in pieces. We specified it on every panel at Lululemon.
How high does a restroom mirror go?
ADA 603.3 puts the bottom edge of the reflecting surface at 40 inches maximum above the floor over a lavatory or counter, and 35 inches maximum where there is nothing under it. The advisory adds a top edge at 74 inches minimum so the same mirror works whether somebody is standing or seated.
Can you cut a mirror to fit a frame that is already there?
Yes, and in retail it is a large part of the work. The Lululemon mirrors were cut to drop into frames already on the wall. We measure the frame rather than the old glass, because the old glass is often the reason it is being replaced.
Do you work after hours in a store that is open?
Yes. Most mall work happens outside trading hours. Tell us the property rules on your bid request and we will price the labor to match.
Send the mirror schedule
Send the schedule, get a real number
A mirror schedule or a marked up plan is enough to start. We price mirror, backing, trim and installation as separate lines, so you can see what the copper free upgrade actually costs before you decide on it.
- 7830 Byron Dr Ste 4, West Palm Beach, FL 33404
- (561) 584-8485 · Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm
- [email protected]
- Licensed and insured, FL SCC131154568
Request a bid
Commercial bids from 48 hours. Every request gets a reply from someone who has read the schedule.