Broken window? What to do in the first hour, and who to call

Short answer: in the first hour after glass breaks, keep people and pets back from the shards, do not try to remove broken pieces yourself, secure the opening loosely if you can, and call a glazier who can board it up today. The opening being safe tonight matters more than the glass being replaced this minute.

The first ten minutes: stay safe

A broken pane is sharp in ways that are easy to forget when you are flustered. Glass that looks like it is sitting still in a frame can drop without warning, and the small fragments scatter further than you expect. Before anything else, get children, pets and bare feet out of the room, and put shoes on before you walk anywhere near the break.

Do not try to pull jagged pieces out of the frame to tidy it. A shard held in old putty or a rubber seal can let go all at once and slice a hand to the bone. Sweep up only what is loose on the floor, with a dustpan and a stiff brush, and leave the glass still in the frame for the glazier. They clear a frame safely every day, and they protect the rebate the new glass has to seat into, which a hurried clean-up usually wrecks.

Securing the opening until help arrives

If the weather is in or the house is open to the street, you may want to cover the gap before the glazier gets there. Keep it simple and keep it safe. A sheet of cardboard or thick plastic taped over the inside of the frame keeps the worst of the rain and wind out for a few hours. Do not try to wedge a board into the opening yourself, and do not lean anything heavy against cracked glass that is still standing, because the pressure can finish the break.

If the break is in a door you still need to use, or a shopfront where people walk past, mark it clearly so nobody walks into the remaining glass, and keep the area clear until the glazier secures it properly. This is exactly what a same-day board-up is for: a clean, weatherproof seal over the opening that holds while the replacement glass is made to measure.

How to tell a real 24/7 glazier from a call centre

This is the part that catches people out at night. You search "24/7 emergency glazier", ring the first number, and a friendly voice takes all your details and says someone will be in touch. Then you sit with an open window until morning while nobody calls back. That voice was a call centre lead service, not a glazier, and your job has just been sold on to whoever pays for it.

A real 24/7 glazier sounds different on the phone. They ask what is broken, they ask you to send a photo, and they give you a price for the pane and a board-up there and then. You are speaking to the person who will turn up, not a switchboard taking a message.

If the person on the phone cannot tell you the price for a board-up and roughly when they will arrive, you are not talking to a glazier. You are talking to a message service that hopes to sell your job on.

What to expect once you call

Knowing the steps takes the panic out of the call. Here is what a real glazier does, in order. First, they take the details and the photo and price the board-up over the phone. Second, they come out the same day, clear the broken glass safely, and board up the opening so it is secure and weatherproof tonight. Third, they measure the opening on site and make the replacement glass to fit it, toughened or laminated to AS 1288 where the standard calls for safety glass. Fourth, they come back on a named day, fit the made-to-measure glass, clean up and take the boards away.

If you want the price side of this clear before you ever need to call, our guide to what glass replacement costs sets out the real bands and how to read a glass quote, and our guide to safety glass and AS 1288 explains where the law requires toughened or laminated glass so ordinary float never goes back into a door or a low window. When the glass goes, the emergency glass repair and board-up service is the one to call, day or night.