When you suddenly experience a broken window, it’s certainly natural to experience some resulting grief and stress. This can be true in the immediate aftermath as well as throughout the entire remediation process. Don’t panic though – there are a number of simple steps you can take in order to organize the process and your thoughts as well. Here are seven, simple steps for handling this often confusion-inducing situation.
1- Section Off, Communicate Hazard
The first thing you should do is stay calm and simply section off or otherwise mark the area for the safety of others. Try using cones, containers, warning signs, rope, or any other obstacle that can be placed around the edge of where the glass appears to have stopped. Also, try to quarantine at least a few feet beyond this visible edge of glass shards as there is almost certainly more present beyond what you see right now. By adequately communicating the hazard to all that may ordinarily frequent this area you create, awareness and successfully advocate safety first and foremost.
2- Address Hanging Hazards
Now that the area is clearly marked for others, cleanup can commence. First though, you will want to break out any remaining, hanging, insecure glass. If the window pane damage consists of only cracks without actually missing glass, you can often very carefully apply duct or packaging tape to the window in order to facilitate a united bond should things get worse while awaiting replacement. If glass is missing, carefully use a broom or other long item to carefully break out and remove the remaining sections that were left hanging.
3- Thorough Cleanup
A thorough cleanup is now ready to take place. Very carefully and with heavy gloves, place larger pieces of glass in a box or other, similar, solid container for discarding at the curbside trash container. Smaller pieces can then be vacuumed and swept up. Finally, using wet paper towels and a blotting action, you can get up the remaining glass fragments that are often unseen. In addition, use lots of light for visibility and proceed in cleanup via an organized approach pattern so as to not track glass into previously clean areas in the process.
4- Gather Window Info
Having removed all sharp hazards and cleaned up thoroughly, you can now take the next step of gathering some basic information about the window that broke. According to Dependable Glass AZ, if you have any previous documentation, home builder records, home insurance, or other relevant documents, gather and check these for any applicable service work that may be due you. In addition, gather as many measurements of the window as you can. Draw a picture if necessary for a full rendering of the window’s measurements and specs.
5- Contact Replacement Service or Insurer
Now that you’ve gathered as much info as possible, contact the replacement service of your choice or your home insurance carrier. They will need as much of this valuable info as they can get in order to achieve a remotely accurately estimate price, parts availability, and dates of replacement. If replacement is possible on the same day, you may not need to do much more at this point. If replacement must wait, proceed to the next step.
6- Gather Materials for Closure
Your individual situation will dictate how you want to go about temporarily closing up the opening. For a quick fix where climate and security are not a deep concern, plastic sheeting can be applied via any number of adhesive products. If this isn’t plausible, many resort to picking up some wood and screws from the hardware store and simply closing off the opening. To make a good choice in this area, gauge the weather, length of wait time until replacement, security needs, costs, and all other ramifications of the temporary closure you may employ.
7- Install Temporary Closure
Now, all you have to do is install your chosen closure media over the opening. No matter your method of choice here, latex caulk and tape are good, additional sealant options around gaps and edges that is easily removed later. The rest of the job now rests with the replacement service.
It’s absolutely normal to feel a certain degree of distress over the breaking of a window. However, when you can organize the handling of the matter into small, manageable steps, this beast quickly turns into a very tamable, small-time project. If you’ve gone through all of the steps listed here, congratulations, you’ve done a great job in all respects to handling an otherwise tough situation.
