Tips For Dealing With A Broken Window Before It Can Be Repaired

Hearing a window break while you're inside your home can induce panic for a brief instant as you picture a frightening home invasion, but you'll likely be relieved — to an extent, anyway — when you realize that a bird has flown into the window and broken the glass. It's a good idea to call a local glass service to schedule a repair visit right away. If the service is busy, it might be a couple days until a technician can visit your home, so it's important to get in the queue right away. In the meantime, here are some strategies you should employ to deal with the issue.

Clean Up The Area

Cleaning up the broken glass is important, especially if you have children or pets who mistakenly step on the broken glass. You might encounter some broken glass inside the home and some outside the home. Wear heavy leather gardening gloves to protect your hands. Pick up the large chunks and use a broom and dustpan to gather the smaller shards. Double or triple bag the broken glass and place it directly in your garbage can. Try to avoid using the vacuum. While it might seem tempting to vacuum up the small shards of glass, they can slice the bag or filter and damage the vacuum.

Cover The Opening

You need to make sure that the broken window is covered to avoid animals getting inside your home. Generally, for short-term situations, a piece of heavy cardboard will suffice. Measure the size of the window and cut the cardboard to size. Have a helper hold the cardboard in place while you tape it either with clear packing tape or duct tape. The latter type of tape provides a stronger hold, which is ideal if the conditions are exceptionally windy.

Protect The Area

Depending on the location of the window in your home, you might wish to place large objects around it to keep your children away. Even after you've picked up the glass on the ground and floor, the frame can potentially still have sharp pieces of glass embedded in it. The glass service will remove these for you, but in the meantime it's important to keep people away. On the inside of the home, consider temporarily rearranging some furniture to block access to the window. Outside, this isn't as important as most windows are in location that children will have a hard time reaching.

For assistance, talk to a professional like Griggs & Son Glass & Mirror.


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