If the doors in your house become damaged, it is vital that you take action to repair any damage. Damage to your doors can allow intruders to gain entry into your home and will allow cold draughts to enter your home which will affect the energy efficiency of the property. Last year, I discovered that the front door of my home was damaged due to wear and tear. I called a door contractor who was able to carry out repairs to the door to get it back into action. I hope you like my blog and that it helps you to deal with any damaged doors.
Cleaning up glass from a broken window is pretty straightforward, right? Well, yes, although there are a number of steps which might not have occurred to you if you've not had to do it before. Once you get over the surprise and annoyance of a projectile inadvertently flying into your window and taking it out of service, the cleaning process needs to begin immediately. Follow this handy checklist for the best possible results.
1. Ensure that everyone in your household stays away from the area until you've cleaned it. Temporarily shut pets away if necessary.
2. If you plan to lodge an insurance claim, take a number of photos of the damage both on the inside and the outside of your home.
3. If sections of glass are still hanging in the window frame, these will need to be secured. Apply strong and durable gaffer tape to the area to hold the sections in place for now. Place newspaper underneath the window to minimise damage and ease any further cleanup if these sections should fall.
4. Taking extreme care (gardening gloves can be beneficial), pick up larger pieces of glass. Wrap these in newspaper and deposit them into your recycling bin.
5. Sweep the area to remove smaller pieces of glass. Collect these pieces in a dustpan.
6. Vacuum the area to remove the tiny leftover fragments of glass. If your vacuum cleaner takes a paper bag, dispose of this immediately. Any small pieces of glass could easily penetrate the bag.
7. Wipe the area with several slices of bread. This might sound strange, but is a great way of picking up any tiny fragments of glass that might have been missed. Throw the bread away immediately and ensure your bin lid is firmly closed to prevent animals eating it.
8. Inspect the broken window on the exterior of your home. Carefully pick up any broken pieces, wrap them in newspaper and dispose of them in your recycling bin.
9. Contact your chosen window repairs company. Stress the urgency of the situation in that ideally the repairs should be performed within the same day.
10. If same-day repairs are not possible for whatever reason, you might wish to secure the window overnight. A suitably sized sheet of plywood can be nailed over the broken window. This can be nailed directly into the wooden window frame, and the nail holes can be filled with putty or wood filler at a later stage. Plywood will need to be screwed into metal window frames (you will need an electric drill). These holes can later be filled with a metal bonding filler. Repainting a metal or metal window frame might be necessary once the glass has been repaired.
By following these steps, you can quickly clean up a broken window. Ideally, window repairs can be completed on the same day so you can avoid the inconvenience of having to secure the window overnight.