Alpha BrothersGlass
(801) 678-5770 Free Estimate
Broken glass, open building

Emergency glass board-up on the Wasatch Front

If your storefront or window is out, the building is open to the street and that is the problem to solve first. Call us. We board it, secure it and measure for the replacement in the same visit.

Serving the Wasatch Front, Park City and Tooele.

Call us now(801) 678-5770

We answer Monday to Saturday, 8am to 6pm. Outside those hours, read the steps below. They are worth doing whether or not anyone is coming today.

Send the details

If the glass is already out, calling is faster. Use this if it can wait until we open.

This is how we reach you to confirm measurements.
So we can send the written estimate over. We will still call.
Property type
No obligation. We reply the same business day.

Got it. We will call you back.

Your request is in. If it is urgent, call (801) 678-5770 and we will pick up.

What to do in the first hour

In order. This is the part nobody tells you and it is the part that costs money when it goes wrong.

  1. 1

    Keep people away from it

    Tempered glass fails into blunt pieces, but annealed glass in an older frame breaks into blades and a cracked pane still standing in a frame can drop without warning. Move people back before you do anything else.

  2. 2

    Photograph it before you touch it

    Wide shot, then close ups, then the inside. Do this before you sweep anything up. Insurers and police reports both want the scene as it was, and once it is cleaned up you cannot get it back.

  3. 3

    Report it if it was a break-in

    Get the report number. Most commercial policies want it, and it is far easier to obtain now than a week later.

  4. 4

    Call us with the measurements you can safely take

    Rough width and height of the opening, and whether the frame looks intact. That is enough for us to bring the right board and know what we are dealing with when we arrive.

  5. 5

    Do not order glass yet

    Not until someone has measured the opening properly. Glass is cut to order and a piece cut to a guessed dimension is a piece you have paid for and cannot use.

Boarding is not the repair

It is worth being clear about this, because people are sometimes disappointed when a board goes up and no glass arrives the same day.

Glass is cut to order. Nobody carries a pane the size of your storefront on a van, and anyone who tells you they do is selling you something that will not fit. So the job is always two visits: close the hole today, fit the glass when it is made.

What the board does is turn an emergency into a scheduled job. The building is secure, you are insurable again, and the weather is outside where it belongs. That is the whole point of it.

While we are there we measure the opening properly and check whether the frame survived, because that decides whether you are paying for glass or for glass and a frame. See commercial glass for what happens after.

Same visit We secure the opening and measure for the replacement on the same trip, so the glass order starts moving immediately.
Frame check If the frame is straight we reglaze it and the frame stays. That is much the cheaper outcome.
Written price You get the replacement quoted in writing before anything is ordered, not after the board goes up.

Who calls us for this

Mostly commercial, because a business with an open frontage cannot lock up and go home.

Retail and restaurants

A frontage that has been put through overnight. The priority is trading tomorrow, which means secure tonight and glass as soon as it is cut.

Property managers

A vacant unit or a common area where nobody is on site to watch it. Tell us the access arrangement once and we will work to it.

Homeowners

A patio door or a large window out, usually weather or an accident. Same approach, smaller opening, and the frame is more often salvageable.

Board-up questions

How much does it cost to board up a window?
Board-up is quoted per opening, because the price follows the size of the hole and what it takes to make it safe. A single domestic window is a small job. A blown out shopfront pane at street level needs more material and more hands. It is separate from the glass replacement, and it is the part that stops the building being open overnight.
What is a board up?
It is a temporary closure of a broken opening, not a repair. The remaining glass is cleared out, the edges made safe, and a board is fixed over the opening so the building is weatherproof and secure while the replacement glass is measured, ordered and fabricated. Cut to size and tempered glass takes days to make, and the board is what covers that gap.
How quickly can a broken storefront be boarded up?
Call as soon as the glass goes and boarding is the first thing we do, not the last. We are reachable Monday to Saturday, 8am to 6pm, and securing the opening comes before anything else on the job. Getting the board on early is also what lets a shop keep trading the next morning.
Does insurance cover emergency board-up?
Usually it forms part of the claim, and most policies expect you to take reasonable steps to secure the property, which is exactly what boarding is. Photograph the damage before anything is moved, and keep the board-up invoice separate from the glazing invoice. We can write them separately so the claim is easier to file.
Can a building be boarded up and the glass replaced later?
That is the normal sequence, not a compromise. The board goes on now, we measure the opening properly, the glass is fabricated to size, and we come back and set it. Trying to do both in one visit only works when the pane happens to be a stock size, which for a storefront it rarely is.

Open building? Call first, fill in a form second

A form is fine for a quote. If the glass is already out, the phone is faster and we will tell you straight away whether we can get to you today.

Call (801) 678-5770 Send the details instead

Not an emergency? See commercial glass or residential glass.