Mirrors near you

Mirror work covers several quite different products, and they fail in different ways. Naming the one you want gets you a comparable quote and, more usefully, the right conversation about fixing and backing.

There are only three real fixing methods and most jobs combine two. Mechanical fixings, meaning J-channels, top clips or rosettes through drilled holes, carry the weight and let the mirror be removed later. Adhesive bedding holds the sheet flat against the wall and takes the rattle out of it. Framed and cabinet mirrors are hung from their own furniture hardware and are a carpentry problem rather than a glazing one.

The adhesive is where jobs are quietly lost. Ordinary building sealants and construction adhesives can attack the backing paint and the metal layer beneath it, and the result is a dark stain that appears months later in the exact pattern the adhesive was applied in. Use only an adhesive the mirror manufacturer states is compatible with mirror backing, apply it in vertical beads so air can move behind the sheet, and never bed a mirror in a solid, airtight layer.

The wall matters as much as the glue. A large mirror on plasterboard needs noggings or a backing sheet behind the lining, not a hope and a cartridge of adhesive; a mirror on a tiled wall is only as well fixed as the tiles are bonded; and a wall that is out of plumb or bowed will show in the reflection long before anyone notices it in the wall itself. Ask the installer to check the wall with a straight edge before ordering, because a mirror is a very unforgiving spirit level.

Bathrooms, ensuites and spa rooms are treated by the Housing Provisions as high human-impact areas below a sight line of two metres above the floor, the bottom of the bath or the shower base, and the default answer there is Grade A safety glazing material. Mirrors get an express exception: monolithic annealed glass may be used for a mirror provided a fixed vanity or bench of not less than 760 mm in height is positioned in front of it.

Read that as the Code describing a barrier. The vanity is what keeps a person from walking or falling into the mirror, and the exception only exists while that barrier is there. A mirror on an open bathroom wall, behind a freestanding bath, beside a shower or running to the floor is not covered by it, and the same is true of any mirror in a position people move through in everyday activities.

Mirrored wardrobe doors are the case most often misjudged in a house, because they are read as furniture when they are doors that a child can run into. Whatever the position, ask for the grade and the backing in writing on the quote, and for large sheets ask specifically whether the mirror carries a safety backing. It costs little at order time and nothing at all can be done about it afterwards.

Almost all mirror damage from cleaning is damage to the edges. Spraying cleaner directly at the glass sends liquid down the face and around the perimeter, where it wicks under the backing and starts the dark creep that ends the mirror's life. Spray the cloth instead, work from the centre outwards, and dry the bottom edge last.

Keep ammonia, strong solvents and abrasive pads away from mirrors entirely. A soft microfibre cloth with warm water handles most bathroom film, and a weak vinegar solution deals with hard water marks, provided it is wiped off promptly and not allowed to pool at the base.

The most valuable maintenance is not cleaning at all. Run the bathroom exhaust fan during and well after a shower, open the window when the weather allows, and wipe standing water off the shelf or vanity top under a mirror. In an Australian summer a bathroom can stay humid all day, and a mirror that never dries out at its edges is on a clock.

A large mirror coming down is a serious event, and it usually gives warning first: a corner lifting, a rattle that was not there before, a hairline crack that appeared when nothing hit it. Treat any of those as a reason to stop using the room, support the sheet and call a glazier, rather than pressing it back and hoping the adhesive re-grabs.

If one has already broken, keep people and pets out, wear closed shoes, and leave pieces that are still held by the backing or the wall for the glazier, who has the gloves and the means to take the waste away. Mirror glass with no safety backing breaks into large, sharp, heavy pieces, which is precisely the argument for specifying safety backing on anything large or anything in a child's reach.

Two positions deserve extra thought in a family home. Mirrored wardrobe doors get run into, and a full-height mirror standing on the floor can be pulled over by a toddler climbing on it. A leaner mirror should be physically secured to the wall as a matter of course, exactly as a tall chest of drawers is, and that is a two-minute job at delivery rather than a decision to revisit later.

For a plain modern mirror the honest answer is almost always replacement. Once the backing has corroded, the reflective layer is gone, and the cost and difficulty of stripping and recoating a sheet outstrips simply making a new one to the same size with a better specification and a proper edge finish.

The case for restoration is about the frame, not the glass. An inherited or period mirror is worth keeping because of what surrounds it, and a glazier or restorer can fit new glass into the original frame, or in some cases have the sheet resilvered where the original glass itself is part of the value. Say at the outset which of those you want, since they are different trades with different lead times.

When you do replace, replace deliberately. Move to a copper-free or environmentally coated mirror in a wet room, ask for polished edges and a safety backing, change the fixing method if the old one failed, and fix the underlying cause. A new mirror hung on the same unventilated wall with the same adhesive will fail in the same way and on roughly the same schedule.