What an emergency glazier does
JM Glass & Glazing are glaziers based at 24 Waddon Close in Croydon CR0 4JT. We board up, make safe and reglaze broken windows, doors and shopfronts across South London and Surrey, usually the same day.
An emergency glazier makes a broken window, door or shopfront safe, then puts glass back in it. That is usually two jobs, not one. The first is clearing the loose glass and boarding the opening so the property is secure and weathertight. The second is measuring, ordering and fitting the right glass, which might be the same day or a few days later depending on what broke. We do both, working out of Waddon in Croydon.
What to do in the first ten minutes
- Keep everyone away from the opening, pets included. Don't pull shards out of the frame, glass still gripped in a rebate is under tension and it will let go.
- Photograph it before you clear anything up. One wide shot of the room or the frontage, then close-ups of the frame. If you end up claiming, that is your evidence.
- If it's a break-in, ring the police first. 999 if anyone might still be on the property, 101 if they have gone. Ask for the crime reference number and write it down.
- Pick the big pieces up with thick gloves and put them in a rigid box, not a bin bag. Get the fine stuff with a damp kitchen towel rather than a vacuum.
- Then ring 07956 138 582 and tell us what broke, roughly how big, single or double glazed, which floor it is on, and whether it is a door.
Boarding up and making a property safe
Boarding up is a temporary fix that buys time for the real glass. We take out what is left in the frame, clear the rebate, and fix plywood (9mm or 12mm on a house window, 18mm on a shopfront), either into the frame itself or across the opening onto the surrounding brickwork. On a uPVC door panel we will normally board both faces so the frame is not dragged out of square. It stops the weather, it stops anyone climbing through, and it stops a bad night getting worse. We aim to make a property safe the same day where we can. If we cannot get to you, we will say so on the phone rather than book you in and leave you waiting.
Break-ins, crime reference numbers and insurance
Most home insurance covers broken glass, either as accidental damage or as part of a break-in claim. Check your excess before you ring the insurer, though. A single small pane often costs less than the excess, and a claim on the record can cost more at renewal than the glass did. Forced doors, large panes, shopfronts and anything that has damaged the frame as well are usually worth claiming. Your insurer will want the crime reference number and the photographs, which is why those first ten minutes matter.
We invoice you directly and we itemise it (glass type, thickness, sizes, and what was done on each visit), so it stands up if you send it to an insurer, a landlord or a managing agent. We are not on any insurer's approved panel, which means nobody is telling us what to fit or capping what we can spend on your front door. If your insurer wants something in writing before we start, ask and we will send it.
Two things decide whether you get glass today or in a few days: what it is, and whether it has to be made. Clear float we cut ourselves from stock. Toughened cannot be cut once toughened, so it is made to size. As are sealed units.
How to tell what actually broke
Look at the mess. Thousands of small blunt cubes, all down at once, means toughened, and toughened is what goes back. Long sharp shards still in the frame means annealed float, and in a door, beside a door or low in a wall, float should never have been there. A spider's web crack that has not fallen out is laminated, doing its job.
The glass that goes back in
- 4mm and 6mm clear float: single-glazed windows, cupboard doors, outbuilding panes. Cut to size at our place, often on the first visit.
- 4mm, 6mm and 10mm toughened: doors, side panels, low-level windows, shower screens. Made to size, so usually a board-up first, glass a few days on.
- 6.4mm and 6.8mm laminated, the usual upgrade after a break-in. Two panes bonded to an interlayer, so it holds together when hit.
- Sealed units, commonly 4-16-4 or 4-20-4. If one pane goes, the whole unit is replaced. You cannot put a single pane back into a factory-sealed sandwich. See double glazed unit replacement.
- 10mm and 12mm toughened, shopfronts, entrance screens and frameless doors. See shop front glass replacement.
What actually drives the price
Nobody can price a broken window blind. These are what move the number:
- Glass type. Toughened is roughly double clear float for the same pane, laminated more again. Obscure, leaded and low-E all add.
- Size, and the minimum charge. Glass is priced by area, but there is a floor under it. A tiny pane is never as cheap as the maths suggests.
- Access. A ground-floor window is a different job from a second-floor bay over a conservatory roof. Ladders or a tower change it.
- Weight. Past roughly 1.5m by 1.5m in 6mm toughened it is a two-man lift; a shopfront pane can want three and suction cups.
- The frame. Rotten timber beads, seized uPVC beads and aluminium frames glazed from outside all add time on site.
- When you ring. Out-of-hours work costs more than a weekday visit. You should hear that figure on the phone, not on the doorstep.
Shopfronts and commercial glass
A broken shopfront is a security problem and a trading problem at once. Croydon carries more shop glass than anywhere else on our patch (North End, the South End restaurants and the Purley Way sheds), and most of it is 10mm or 12mm toughened. We board across the opening onto the stallriser so you can trade in the morning, then glaze it when the pane comes back. Where a door or screen has a large run of glass, the manifestation goes back on.
What a local glazier does that a call centre cannot
Many numbers that come up for emergency glazing in Croydon ring a call centre, not a glazier. The job goes to whoever will take it, and the price is settled on your doorstep. We are at 24 Waddon Close, a mile and a half from East Croydon. Jason has spent his working life in the glazing trade and answers his own phone. We cover Croydon and the CR postcodes, out across South London to Bromley, and into Surrey through Purley, Coulsdon and Caterham. Rated 5.0 on Google, and if something is not right afterwards we come back to it.
Emergency Glazier across South London and Surrey
We provide emergency glazier throughout the areas below and everywhere in between. See our full areas covered page.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends where you are and what is already booked. We aim to make a property safe the same day where we can, and we will tell you on the phone whether that is realistic rather than string you along. Croydon, Waddon, South Croydon and Purley are minutes from us. Ring 07956 138 582. The mobile gets answered when the office does not.
Sometimes both. Clear float glass we cut ourselves, so a single-glazed pane can often be measured and fitted in one visit. Toughened glass and sealed double-glazed units are made to your sizes and normally take a few days, so those are a board-up first and a second visit to glaze it properly.
We will not print a figure here, because an honest one does not exist until we know the glass type, the size, the floor it is on and whether it is out of hours. What we will do is price the work before we start it, not after. Tell us what has broken on the phone and we will give you a realistic range.
Ask when you ring and you will get a straight answer. Out-of-hours work costs more than a weekday visit (that is true of every glazier in South London), so the sensible thing is to settle the figure on the phone before anyone gets in a van. Nobody should be discovering it on their own doorstep at midnight.
Check your excess first. A single small pane frequently costs less than the excess, so claiming can leave you worse off once renewal comes round. Forced doors, large panes, shopfronts and any damage to the frame itself are usually worth claiming. Photograph everything before you clear up, and get a crime reference number if it was a break-in.
If it sits in a door, in a panel beside a door below 1500mm, or in a wall below 800mm from the floor, then yes. Building Regulations call those critical locations and the glass must be toughened or laminated safety glass, permanently marked as such. If the pane that broke was ordinary float, we fit the right thing rather than copy the mistake.
Yes, and it is a good part of what we do around Croydon town centre. We clear the opening, board across it so you can trade in the morning, and come back with the glass once it is made. Shopfront glass is usually 10mm or 12mm toughened, and toughened cannot be cut after the event, so it has to be ordered to size.
We replace glass in the frames you already have: panes, sealed units, door glass and shopfront glass. Fitting complete new window frames is notifiable work under Building Regulations and needs a scheme-registered installer, which we are not. If new frames are genuinely what your window needs, we will tell you instead of selling you a repair that will not last.