How to Measure Your Pool for Glass Fencing - Step by Step | Barrier Hub

# How to Measure Your Pool for Glass Fencing - A Step-by-Step Guide

The good news: measuring up for a glass pool fence is something you can absolutely do yourself. You don't need an installer to come out, quote, and measure - you need a tape measure, half an hour, and a clear method. Get the measurements right and our calculator does the hard part: working out the exact panels, spigots, gates, and hardware your job needs, all compliant to AS 1926.1.

Here's how to do it properly.

What you'll need

A tape measure (a 30m open-reel tape is easier than a short builder's tape for a pool perimeter)

A pen and paper, or your phone's notes

Optional: a helper to hold the tape on longer runs

Step 1 - Sketch your pool area first

Before you measure anything, draw a rough bird's-eye sketch of the area you're fencing. It doesn't need to be neat or to scale - it just needs every straight section (we call these "runs"), every corner, and where you want your gate. This sketch becomes the map you write your measurements onto, and it's what stops you double-counting or missing a section.

Mark which side is the pool and which side is the yard. You'll need that for the gate later.

Step 2 - Measure each straight run

Measure each straight section of the fence line in millimetres, end to end, and write it on your sketch. Work your way around the whole perimeter, run by run, including any short returns against the house or a wall.

A few things that matter here:

Measure where the fence will actually sit, not the pool edge. Your fence line is usually set back from the water - the barrier needs to sit on the outside of the pool's hazard zone, not right at the water's edge. Measure the line you'll actually build on.

Keep clear of climbable objects. As you plan the line, remember the fence needs a clear 900mm "non-climbable zone" on the outside. Anything a child could climb - a retaining wall, a garden bed edge, a pot, the pool pump - needs to be outside that zone. It's much easier to plan the fence line around this now than to move things later.

Note any changes in ground level. If the ground rises or falls along a run, jot it down. Sloping ground affects how the panels step (more on that below).

Step 3 - Decide where your gate goes

Mark the gate position on your sketch and measure the opening you want. Two rules to keep in mind, both from AS 1926.1:

The gate must swing away from the pool - so it opens outward, into the yard, not over the water.

It must self-close and self-latch from any position. That's handled by the gate hardware, not your measuring, but it's worth knowing now because it affects which hinges and latch you'll want.

Make sure there's clear space for the gate to swing open on the yard side, with nothing in the way.

Step 4 - Don't worry about cutting glass to fit

Here's where a glass pool fence is different from timber or even aluminium: you don't cut glass to fit. Toughened safety glass can't be cut, drilled, or trimmed once it's made - doing so shatters it. So instead of one continuous custom-cut run, a glass fence is made up of individual panels in set widths, with small, even gaps between them.

That means you don't need to make your runs come out to a tidy round number. You measure the true length of each run, and the calculator works out the best combination of standard panel widths to fill it - keeping every gap within the compliant limit. Panels come in a wide range of widths in small increments, so there's almost always a combination that fits cleanly.

This is exactly the kind of fiddly maths the calculator is built to do, so your job is just to measure accurately and let it solve the layout.

Step 5 - Know the compliance numbers (so nothing surprises you)

You don't need to design for compliance - the calculator builds it in - but it helps to understand the rules your measurements are feeding into:

Height: the barrier must be at least 1200mm high, measured from the finished ground level on the outside of the fence

Gap at the bottom: no more than 100mm between the bottom of the glass and the ground

Gaps between panels: no more than 100mm anywhere

Non-climbable zone: 900mm clear on the outside, as covered above

The bottom-gap rule is the one that catches people on sloping ground. If your ground falls away along a run, a single level row of panels would open up a gap bigger than 100mm at the low end. The fix is to "step" the panels down the slope so each one keeps its gap within limit - like a row of books leaning down a shelf. If you've noted your level changes in Step 2, the layout can account for this.

Step 6 - Double-check, then build

Run back around your sketch and confirm every number. The classic mistakes are measuring the pool edge instead of the fence line, forgetting a short return section, and not accounting for the gate opening. Five minutes checking now saves a reorder later.

Then take your measurements to the calculator. Enter your runs and your gate, and it builds a complete, compliant list of materials - every panel sized to your layout, plus the spigots, hinges, latch, gate, and fixings to match.

**Start your measurements in the calculator →**

Stuck on a tricky bit - a curved section, a steep slope, an awkward corner against the house? Ask Joe, our AI assistant. Joe can talk you through how to measure anything unusual before you order, so you get it right the first time.