Broken glass in Hobart: what to do in the first hour
Get everyone away from the opening and put shoes on. Photograph the damage from inside and outside before you move a single piece, because your insurer and your glazier both need those shots. Pick the large pieces up with leather-palm gloves, then vacuum. If glass has landed near a power point, an appliance or a light fitting, switch that circuit off at the switchboard. Tape a builder’s plastic sheet or a flattened carton over the inside of the opening using painter’s tape, not duct tape. Then send those photos with a rough width and height and we will price the make-safe and the permanent glass together.
What you are looking at, how urgent it is, and what it costs
Not every broken pane is an emergency, and a fair few of the calls we take at 9pm could have waited until the morning for exactly the same money. Find your symptom in the table, then read the cost line next to it. Every figure is a 2026 supplied-and-fitted price for Hobart and the southern suburbs.
| What you can see | What it usually means | How urgent | Typical 2026 cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pane gone, hole big enough to climb through, ground floor | Security breach and weather ingress. Nothing between your house and the street. | Now | $150 to $350 board-up, plus $120 to $320 after hours, then $180 to $450 to reglaze |
| Spider-web crack in a door, a side panel or a bathroom pane | Very often plain annealed glass sitting in a spot that now requires Grade A safety glass. A knock or a slam can put someone through it. | Now | $350 to $750 for a toughened replacement |
| Storm or tree limb through several panes and the frame | Frame damage as well as glass. Water is already in the plaster and the carpet. | Now | $150 to $350 per opening to make safe, frame repair quoted separately |
| Toughened panel shattered into blunt granules | A shower screen, table top or balustrade has done exactly what toughened glass is designed to do, usually from an old edge chip. | Now to clear it, this week to replace | $700 to $1,400 framed screen, $1,200 to $2,800 frameless |
| Glass loose or rattling, putty crumbling out of a timber sash | The linseed putty has gone chalky and let go. A solid westerly off kunanyi can drop the pane out. | This week, sooner if wind is forecast | $220 to $480 per pane to reglaze and reputty |
| Single crack across a pane, glass still firmly in the frame, upstairs or in a room you can shut | Impact or thermal stress. The pane is still doing its job. | This week | $180 to $450 for a standard clear reglaze |
| Chip or small bullseye near an edge or a corner | A stress riser. Unlike a windscreen this cannot be resin filled, and it will run into a full crack the next time the pane heats or cools quickly. | This week to book, no rush tonight | $180 to $450, the same as a full crack |
| Cracked pane that has not fallen apart and feels slightly rubbery | Laminated glass. The plastic interlayer is holding it together, which is exactly what it is there for. | This week | $380 to $800 for a laminated replacement |
| Misting or a tide mark between the two panes of a double glazed unit | The edge seal has failed. It is an efficiency and appearance problem, not a safety one. | Can wait | $450 to $900 per insulated glass unit |
| Water streaming down the room side of the glass on a frosty morning | Not a glass fault at all. Warm moist indoor air meeting a cold single pane, the standard Hobart winter problem. | Can wait | Nothing tonight. Ventilation first, then $700 to $1,600 per window to retrofit double glazing |
Indicative Hobart 2026 ranges. Size, glass type, access and whether the location needs safety glass under AS 1288 move the final number. See the full pricing guide or the glass repair cost breakdown.
What tonight is likely to cost
Move the slider and pick the options that match your situation. This is a ballpark built from our own Hobart jobs, not a quote: a fixed price comes once we have seen the photos or measured on site.
- The board-up figure repeats per opening. The permanent glass figure covers one pane, because a second identical pane almost always costs less than the first once we are already on site.
- Excludes frame, sash and hardware repair, plumbing, plaster and carpet drying, which are separate trades or separate line items.
- Excludes anything above single-storey height that needs a scaffold or an elevated work platform.
- Assumes we can park within carrying distance. Tight lanes in Battery Point and steep driveways in West Hobart and Sandy Bay add time to the job.
The five things that make broken glass worse in the next hour
- Slamming, or even gently closing, the door. If the cracked pane is in a door or a side panel, wedge the door open or lock it shut and use another door. Every swing flexes the glass at the crack tip, and that is what turns a repairable evening into an ambulance call.
- Pointing a fan heater at cold cracked glass. Rapid uneven heating is how a hairline crack becomes a full break. Warm the room, not the window.
- Hosing or pressure washing the outside to clear the mess. Water forced past a broken bead runs straight down inside the wall cavity, and you will not see the damage until the paint bubbles months later. Sweep dry.
- Leaving loose glass sitting in the rebate overnight in wind. Shards move, and a gusty Hobart night will work them out onto whatever is below, including a car, a path, or a garden bed you will walk through in the morning.
- Binning the broken glass before it has been photographed. If there is any chance of an insurance claim, that pile is the evidence of thickness, type and cause. Bag it, label it, and keep it in the shed until the claim is settled.
Safe to do yourself, and genuinely dangerous
Do this yourself
- Photograph everything from four angles before you move anything at all.
- Wear closed shoes and leather-palm gloves. Not gardening gloves, and never bare hands.
- Lift big pieces flat, carry them vertically to a bin lined with a flattened box, and never carry glass across your body.
- Vacuum the fine chips with a hard-floor head, then go over the same area with a damp paper towel to lift the dust you cannot see.
- Tape a plastic sheet, a tarp or flattened cartons over the inside of the opening with painter’s tape.
- Switch off the circuit if glass has fallen into an appliance, a power point or a light fitting.
- Shut and lock internal doors so pets and children stay out of that room.
Leave this to a glazier
- Pulling shards out of a frame above head height. Gravity is not on your side and the last piece always drops.
- Anything off a ladder in wind. There is a reason our second-storey Sandy Bay and West Hobart work happens from a proper platform.
- Standing on the edge of a bath or in a shower tray to reach a screen. Wet acrylic and broken glass is the worst combination in the house.
- Handling a large cracked laminated pane. It flexes, it stays in one piece until it suddenly does not, and the edges are sharper than you expect.
- Cutting or drilling toughened glass. It cannot be worked after toughening and it will detonate in your hands.
- Refitting glass into a heritage timber sash with modern silicone. Read DIY versus professional glass replacement first, and heritage sash reglazing if the window is old.
After hours tonight or Monday morning: the real numbers
This is the decision most people are actually ringing about, so here is the arithmetic without the sales pitch. A make-safe in business hours is $150 to $350 for a typical domestic opening. The same job on a weekday evening carries roughly $120 to $250 on top, and on a Sunday or a public holiday roughly $180 to $320 on top. So the premium you are weighing up sits somewhere between $120 and $320.
What that premium buys is security and weatherproofing tonight. It does not buy faster glass. Standard clear float in a common size we carry, so a straight reglaze can be same or next business day either way. Toughened, laminated and double glazed units are cut and processed to order and run 3 to 10 business days from the measure, and no call-out fee changes the supplier run. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you urgency.
Pay the premium when the opening is at ground level and reachable from a street, footpath or laneway; when it is big enough for a person to get through; when weather is being driven into carpet, plaster, cabinetry or a bed; when the property is empty or between tenants; when a shopfront or an office is exposed; or when the broken glass is in the only door you can lock.
Wait until the morning when the opening is upstairs and unreachable; when an insect screen, security grille or roller shutter is still in place; when the room can be shut and emptied; when the crack is in laminated glass that is holding together; or when the pane is intact and the real problem is condensation or a fogged unit.
Broken now, or booked for the morning?
Send the photos and a rough size. You get a make-safe price and a glass price, itemised separately, so you can choose which one you need tonight.
The honest bit: when it is not an emergency
We will come out at 10pm and we would much rather you called than sat in a house you cannot lock. But we tell people to wait more often than you might expect, because the after hours premium is real money that sometimes buys nothing you need.
A fogged double glazed unit is not an emergency. It has probably been failing quietly for a year, and the signs are covered in failed double glazing symptoms. A chipped mirror is not an emergency. A cracked splashback behind a cooktop is not an emergency unless a piece is missing. A first-floor bedroom window with a single crack, in a room you can close, is not an emergency. A shower screen with a dropped door that still has intact glass is not an emergency either, and quite often it is a $150 to $350 hinge or pivot rather than a $1,200 replacement screen.
There is one more thing we would rather say now than after you have paid us. If your glass is intact and your real problem is water running down the inside of the panes every winter morning, no glazier needs to visit tonight or at all. Open the house up for ten minutes a day, run the exhaust fans while you shower and cook, keep furniture off the glass, and read single versus double glazing in Hobart before you spend a cent. Condensation is a moisture and ventilation problem first and a glass problem second, and plenty of Hobart homes get most of the way there for nothing.
What we need from you to price it before we arrive
Send these six things through the form and you will usually get an indicative price back the same day, which means you can decide about tonight with a number in front of you instead of a guess.
- One photo from inside and one from outside, taken back far enough to show the whole window or door and the frame around it.
- A close-up of one edge of the broken pane, so we can see the thickness and whether it is laminated, toughened or plain float.
- A rough width and height in millimetres. A tape measure across the visible glass is close enough at this stage.
- Your suburb, and whether the opening is ground floor or upstairs.
- Any marking in a corner of the glass. Toughened panes carry a small etched stamp, and that tells us the spec straight away.
- Whether you intend to claim. If you do, read the Tasmanian glass insurance guide before anything is thrown out.
Tell us what broke and we will price the make-safe and the glass separately
Send the form with your photos and rough sizes and an itemised indicative price comes back, usually within the hour in working time and by the next morning if you send it overnight.
Emergency glass questions we get asked at the door
What does an after hours board-up cost in Hobart?
Is a cracked window an emergency if the glass is still in the frame?
Can I tape a cracked window and leave it?
How long does the permanent glass take once you have measured?
My toughened shower screen shattered into small pieces. What happened?
Should I claim on insurance for one broken window?
More reading: AS 1288 safety glass compliance · broken glass in a Tasmanian rental · the Hobart glass maintenance schedule · how to choose a glazier in Hobart