Broken Glass, What Happens In The First Hour

A pane goes through in a lounge room. There is glass on the floor, a hole in the wall, and somebody living there tonight.

That is two separate jobs, and the order matters.

The first hour

Make it safe, and nothing else.

That means the loose glass comes out of the frame rather than being left to fall later, the floor is cleared properly, and the opening is boarded or sheeted so the apartment is secure and weatherproof overnight.

Nobody is measuring for a replacement pane in the first hour. The measurement comes after the frame is clear, because a frame with glass still in it cannot be measured accurately and a pane ordered to a wrong measurement is a second delay on top of the first.

Why the replacement takes days, not hours

Because the right glass is usually not on a shelf.

Thickness and type are set by where the glass sits. A pane in a door, beside a door, in a bathroom, or low enough for somebody to walk into has to be safety glass. That is not a preference, it is a requirement, and the kind of safety glass depends on the location.

Toughened glass cannot be cut. It is made to size and heat treated, so a toughened pane is an order with a lead time rather than a cut from stock.

Double glazed units are made to order, sealed as a unit, and they take longer again.

Obscure, laminated, tinted and patterned glass all have their own supply lines.

Which means the honest answer on day one is that the opening is safe today and the glass is in next week. Anybody promising the finished pane the same afternoon is either fitting the wrong glass or has not looked at where it sits.

Where the wrong glass gets fitted

This is the part that matters, because it is invisible once it is in.

Ordinary float glass fitted into a door side panel looks identical to the correct laminated pane. It behaves completely differently when somebody walks into it: one breaks into blunt pieces or holds together in its frame, the other breaks into long edges at head height.

In a rental or a strata building it is also a liability question. A pane replaced with the wrong glass is a defect that sits there until somebody is injured by it.

The check is simple. Safety glass carries a permanent mark in a corner. If the new pane has no mark, it is not safety glass.

The frame is usually part of the problem

A pane that broke in a storm or on a slammed door often broke because the frame was already failing.

Perished glazing rubber, so the pane was sitting hard against metal instead of on a gasket. Rotted timber beads in an older sash. A window that had dropped on its hinges and was being forced shut. A sliding door off its track so the pane was taking the load.

Replacing the glass and leaving that alone means the new pane breaks on the same schedule as the old one. The frame, the seals and the hardware get dealt with at the same time, which is why this sits next to [window and door hardware](/blog/sliding-doors-and-window-hardware-that-stick) rather than separate from it.

Shower screens and balustrades

Two places where broken glass is more serious and more common.

A shower screen pane that fails usually fails spectacularly, because it is toughened and it comes apart all at once, often with somebody in the shower. The cause is almost always a chipped edge from an earlier knock, which took weeks or months to let go. A chipped shower screen edge is a replacement, not a repair, and that is the same logic as [shower screens and bathroom hardware](/blog/shower-screens-and-bathroom-hardware).

A glass balustrade panel on a balcony is structural. It is holding people back from a drop, and a cracked panel is an immediate safety issue that needs the balcony closed until it is replaced, which connects to [stairs, handrails and balustrades](/blog/stairs-handrails-and-balustrades).

Who pays in a strata building

Usually the lot owner for glass inside the apartment, and the owners corporation for glass in common property, though the window itself can sit either side of the line depending on the building.

It is the same boundary argument as every other repair in a building, and it is worth settling before the invoice rather than after, which is the whole subject of [common property or lot owner](/blog/common-property-or-lot-owner-who-pays).

Ample makes broken glass safe the same day and replaces it with the correct glass for where it sits, with the frame, seals and hardware dealt with by one team in the same programme.