A Window Broke At Your Home: Now What?
While residential window glass is quite durable, the fact remains that accidents happen. Whether your ladder slipped while you were cleaning your gutters or your children got a little too careless with their backyard baseball game, windows can and do break all the time. If you end up with a broken window at your home, knowing which steps to follow can take some of the stress out of the situation and potentially get your replacement covered by your home insurance policy.
Keep Children and Pets Away
Start by making sure to block access to the area around the window from pets and small children. While some residential windows are made of tempered glass, some window panes will still produce sharp glass shards when shattered that could be very dangerous to touch. It is not recommended that you attempt to clean up any of the glass yourself unless absolutely necessary, as this should be taken care of by a glass professional.
If you have any pets in your home, consider temporarily placing them in a separate room (or closing the door to the room where the window broke) to keep them clear of any shards. Small children should be kept away from the area as well.
Contact a Residential Glass Professional
If you have a double-pane window and only one pane has broken, there may not be as much of a rush to get your glass replaced. However, if both panes have broken or if your window is single-pane, you may want to call a residential glass installation company that offers 24/7 emergency service. This way, you can have your glass replaced as soon as possible (and the remaining shards cleaned up thoroughly). Some homeowners may put up a piece of plastic sheeting, plywood, or even cardboard over the broken window until help arrives.
File a Home Insurance Claim
Many causes of broken residential windows are covered by home insurance policies, so be sure to contact your agent as soon as possible if you plan on making a claim. You will likely need to provide some documentation in the form of photographs of the damage and an invoice from your repair team, so don't forget to obtain this and submit it with your claim.
Dealing with a broken window in your home can be stressful, but it doesn't have to be a huge hassle to get your glass replaced. Reach out to your homeowner's insurance provider to learn more about how they can help.
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