Broken Window Repair: What Happens Between Your Call and the New Glass

Photograph the damage before anything moves. It takes thirty seconds, it costs nothing, and once a board goes up the evidence your insurer needs is behind it.

Broken window repair happens in two parts: a glazier makes the opening safe and secure, then replaces the glass with a compliant safety pane. Sometimes both halves happen on the same visit. Sometimes the glass has to be made to size first, and a broken window replacement comes back a day or two later.

Below is the whole sequence, so you know what you are dealing with before you pick up the phone. Our emergency glass repair line runs every day of the year.

The short version

Get everyone clear of the glass, then photograph the damage before anything moves.
Send a glazier those photos and rough measurements. It is what gets the right glass on the first trip.
Someone is usually on site the same day.
Most jobs are glazed on that first visit. The rest are boarded and finished on return.
Broken glass, any hour, across the Northern Rivers and southern Gold Coast: call Cape Byron Glass on (02) 6685 8588 or 0400 245 504.

Jump to:

What to do in the first ten minutes
Whether it needs doing tonight
What to send before we drive out
How quickly someone gets there
Same-day glass or a board-up
What it costs
How insurance works

What should you do in the first ten minutes?

Stay well away from the broken glass and get everyone else clear of it too. Then, in order:

Shut the room off if you can. A closed door keeps kids, pets and bare feet away from the pieces you cannot see on the floor.
Photograph everything before you touch it. This is the step people skip and regret. Moneysmart, the Australian Government’s money guidance service, advises taking photos and video of the damage in its original state before you move anything.
Ring a glazier and send those photos through. If the opening is exposed to the weather or the street, this is the call not to delay.
Ring your insurer, if you plan to claim. Moneysmart’s advice is to contact them as soon as practical, even before you know the full extent of the damage. If the property is still secure, ring them before you book any work.
Leave the glass where it is if you safely can. If you must sweep, wear shoes, use a dustpan rather than your hands, and put the glass somewhere sealed and obvious.

What not to do:

Do not try to pull a cracked pane out of its frame.
Do not tape a shattered panel and assume it will hold.
Do not take a pane out and lean it against something. The classic call we get around here is a window taken out to be cleaned and then knocked over.

Should you wait for your insurer before securing the property?

It depends on one thing: whether the property is still secure. Moneysmart advises talking to your insurer before you spend money on temporary repairs, and that is the right order when the damage is contained. A cracked pane still sitting in its frame on a wet Tuesday afternoon is not going anywhere, so ring your insurer first and the glazier after.

An opening standing wide to the weather or the street does not give you that time, so ring the glazier. Securing a property to stop further damage is not the same as starting a repair, and the photographs you took before anything moved protect the claim either way. If you are not sure which of the two you are looking at, ring your insurer’s after-hours line while you wait for the glazier.

Is it an emergency, or can it wait until Monday?

It is an emergency if broken glass is leaving people, property or possessions exposed. Not every broken window glass repair needs doing at midnight, and the test is not how big the hole is or how expensive the glass was. It is whether somebody could be hurt, whether the property is secure, and whether the weather is getting in.

Glass sliding doors are the most common large-panel job, alongside smashed windows, shopfronts, balustrades holding people back from a drop on a balcony or staircase, and the occasional shower screen, which makes a spectacular mess in a room people walk into barefoot.

Some people ring the after-hours line for a job that could have waited until Monday, then apologise for it. There is no need. Working out whether broken glass can wait is a glazier’s job, not yours. Describe it on the phone and we will tell you whether it needs doing tonight or whether we should book it in properly.

That goes for weekends too, which is when people hesitate longest before ringing.

“Paul was awesome, our business had a glass emergency over the weekend. He got back to us immediately and put us at ease knowing we were safe until Monday!”

Amanda Gorr, Google review

What does a glazier need from you before driving out?

Send two things: photos of the damage, and rough measurements of the opening. They are the first two things asked on any after-hours call, and they change what happens next more than any description can.

Why a photo beats a description

A photo tells a glazier what glass to put on the van, because it shows five things a phone call cannot convey:

The pane size.
The frame type.
Whether the glass is toughened or laminated.
Whether the frame itself is damaged.
Whether the opening can be secured tonight.

None of that comes across at 11pm from somebody who is understandably rattled, which is why a clear photo goes such a long way towards getting your broken window repair finished on the first visit.

The glass type is the one on that list you might already know yourself. Plenty of people do, because the window was replaced recently or the pane carries a maker’s stamp in the corner. If that is you, say so on the phone. Knowing which you have before we set off can be the difference between the job being finished that night and a board-up until the new pane arrives.

How to take a rough measurement safely

Measure the opening, not the broken glass, and do not reach into the frame to do it. Height and width to the nearest few centimetres is plenty.

Often there is a safer pane to measure than the broken one. Matching panes are common in sashes, sliding doors and multi-panel windows. If a pane beside or above the broken one is intact, measure that instead and tell us which one you measured. Same measurement, and nobody goes near the damage.

If the pane is somewhere you cannot safely get near, say so and estimate it against something visible in the photo. Text or email, whichever is faster for you.

How quickly can a glazier get there?

A glazier is usually with you the same day, and often within a few hours, anywhere on the coast between Tweed and Ballina. What we will not do is promise a number in minutes. Two jobs can land at once, and you are better off with a realistic timeframe for your job than a figure that sounds impressive right up until it is wrong.

Some jobs beat that comfortably.

“We had an early morning incident with kids that ended in a smashed glass door. I called Cape Byron Glass at 7:30am and they were there within 15 minutes. Jeff and Paul were incredibly kind and helpful.”

Georgina Dyason, Google review

Part of what makes that possible is the vehicles. We run four to five, and each one is fitted out as a mobile workshop rather than a run-around with a few sheets of glass in the back. That is why our 24 hour emergency glaziers can finish most jobs in the driveway, on the first visit.

After hours, the phone is answered by Paul, the owner. Not an answering service, and not a voicemail you hope somebody checks in the morning. Two in the morning included. It means the person you reach can tell you what to do while you wait, which is often what people need most at that hour.

Working this coast since 1994 helps too. We know the streets, so nobody is circling a dark cul-de-sac looking for a house number, and we have usually worked on the same style of window before, which means the glass already on the van is more often the right glass.

Will the glass go in on the spot, or get boarded up?

Roughly 60% of emergency jobs are permanently glazed on the first visit and 40% are made safe, boarded up and finished on a return visit. Which one you get is decided by the glass, not by the hour you rang.

	Glazed on the spot	Boarded, then finished on return
Roughly how often	6 jobs in 10	4 jobs in 10
Why	The glass is a type carried on the van, usually laminated	The glass has to be ordered in, usually toughened
What you get that day	The permanent repair, finished	A secure, weatherproof opening
Second visit needed	No	Yes

“Contacted Cape Byron Glass at 8 am as I had a shattered sliding glass door panel. They were there within the hour to replace the glass panel and the job was completed by 10.30am.”

Ian White, Google review

Why some glass cannot go in tonight

Toughened glass cannot be cut once it has been toughened, so it has to be measured, ordered and made to size. There is no version of that which happens at midnight. Sometimes the frame decides for you as well, because certain window frames and extrusions will only take toughened glass.

Laminated glass is carried in stock, which is why so many jobs finish on the first visit.

What a board-up achieves

A board-up makes the opening secure and weatherproof so you can go to bed. It is the first half of the repair rather than a compromise on it, and the emergency glass replacement that follows goes in as AS1288-compliant safety glass.

The same team comes back and does the permanent work. No handover to a subcontractor you have never spoken to.

What does an emergency call-out cost?

There is no fixed call-out fee. Every window glass repair is assessed on its own, because a single pane in a ground floor window and a shattered shopfront on a Sunday are not the same piece of work.

These are the things that change the price:

The size of the pane. Glass is priced by area, so a small window and a shopfront panel are nowhere near each other.
The type of glass the position calls for. Laminated, toughened and obscure glass are all priced differently.
Whether that glass is carried or has to be made. Made to order adds a second visit.
Whether the frame is damaged as well. A pane on its own is a different job from a pane plus a bent or split frame.
How the opening is reached. A ground floor window is straightforward. Upper storeys, balconies and anything needing access equipment take longer and take more people.

Describe the job on the phone and send a photo, and you will get a proper answer rather than a guess.

How does insurance work with emergency glass?

Cape Byron Glass invoices you directly, and you claim on your own insurance. We do not lodge claims or deal with insurers on your behalf. It is worth being upfront about that, because once you know the claim is yours to run, you can get it moving straight away rather than waiting on us.

What we do instead is make sure the job is insurance-ready: the replacement is compliant safety glass to AS1288, and you get a clear invoice describing exactly what was done, which is what an insurer wants to see. If your insurer asks for a written report, let us know what they need.

For the claim itself, go to your insurer and to a source with no stake in the outcome. Moneysmart’s guide to making a home insurance claim covers the steps, what your excess means, and what an insurer has to tell you in writing if a claim is knocked back. We are glaziers, not advisers.

Who rings an emergency glazier, and what breaks?

Most emergency glass calls come from homeowners in the middle of a bad night. Mowing contractors and real estate agents ring often enough to have us on speed dial. Other trades call when they have broken something on a customer’s site, along with shop owners who cannot trade behind a sheet of ply, strata managers, and interstate owners of holiday houses.

That last group is a big part of what this coast is made of. If you are in Melbourne and the caretaker has just sent you a photo of your Suffolk Park rental with a hole in the back door, the useful thing is not a quote. It is somebody being there this afternoon.

As for what breaks the glass, mowers and whipper-snippers flicking stones are the most consistent cause all year round. Accidents at home come next. Storms bring the biggest spikes when a system rolls through, and break-ins are the least common of the four.

Frequently asked questions

How do you cover a broken window until a glazier arrives?

Usually, you do not. Close the room off and stay clear until the glazier arrives. If you are searching how to cover a broken window because rain or the street is coming in, ply screwed over the opening will hold for a few hours, but wear gloves and eye protection, keep off the frame, and leave it alone if the glass is still moving or the opening is above ground level.

Does a broken window have to be replaced with the same type of glass?

Not always, because AS1288, the Australian Standard for glass in buildings sets the requirement by where the glass sits rather than by what was there before. The National Construction Code’s housing provisions set out the common positions:

Where the glass is	What is generally required
In a door	Grade A safety glazing material
In a side panel within 300mm of a door opening	Grade A safety glazing material, except small panes set above 1200mm
Low level glazing, where the lowest sight line is under 500mm from the floor	Grade A, or 5mm annealed glass for panes up to 1.2m²

There are further exceptions for small panes and certain framed situations, so the answer for your particular window gets confirmed on site when our glazing team quotes the replacement. If the pane that broke was in one of those positions, the replacement has to meet the requirement regardless of what a previous owner installed.

How fast can a glazier get to Ballina or Murwillumbah?

In Ballina and anywhere else on the coast up to Tweed, expect someone the same day, often within a few hours of your call. Murwillumbah and the Tweed Valley sit further inland, so ring and ask, especially at night, when call-outs usually stay on the coast.

What if the broken window is in a rental property?

Tell the agent or the landlord first, before you book anything. In NSW, under section 64 of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW), a tenant who arranges an urgent repair may be reimbursed by the landlord up to $1,000, and the landlord must reimburse within 14 days of receiving written notice. That entitlement comes with conditions, including notifying the landlord or agent and giving them a reasonable opportunity to arrange the repair themselves. Skip that step and you may have no entitlement at all. The work also has to be done by a licensed or properly qualified person, which is worth knowing before anybody reaches for a handyman. Queensland works differently. In Coolangatta and Currumbin, a tenant can arrange emergency repairs up to the value of four weeks’ rent if the owner or agent cannot be reached or does not act promptly, and the owner then has seven days to repay, according to the RTA’s repair guidelines. Whether a particular broken window counts as urgent depends on the circumstances, so make the call first. In practice, managed properties often ring us directly and we invoice the agency.

What happens to all the broken glass?

The broken glass leaves with the glazier. If you have already swept some up, hand it over rather than putting it in the household bin, where it becomes a hazard for whoever empties it. Window glass is not the same material as the bottles and jars kerbside recycling is built for, so that bin is usually not the right home for it either. Easier all round to let us take it away with the rest.

Broken Glass? Give Us A Ring, Any Hour

If you are looking at a broken window right now: get everyone clear of it, photograph it, then ring Cape Byron Glass on (02) 6685 8588 or 0400 245 504. Either number, any hour. We will tell you whether it needs doing tonight, and if it does, someone is usually with you within a few hours. If the glass has to be ordered in, we will make the opening secure tonight and come back to finish it.

The emergency glass repairs line runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year, weekends and public holidays included. Call (02) 6685 8588 or 0400 245 504. For anything that is not urgent, we will book you in during business hours instead.

We look after Byron Bay, Ballina, Tweed Heads, Murwillumbah, Coolangatta and Currumbin, with showrooms at 13E Acacia St, Byron Bay and 1/2-8 Blundell Blvd, Tweed Heads South. If you are just outside these spots, give us a ring anyway. Chances are we can still help.

Written by the team at Cape Byron Glass.

Disclaimer: This article is general information, not safety, insurance or legal advice. Check with your insurer or your tenancy agreement for your own situation.