While today's safety glasses may not break like regular glass, they can still get cracked when they are damaged. Sometimes, safety glass can simply show the odd crack; other times it can shatter more badly but still not break into pieces. Here, the glass holds together in the window even though it is badly broken. The glass is fragile enough to fall out if it is pushed firmly or if something makes the window vibrate a lot, however, the glass may hold together with a bit of help.

If you have a bit of a wait before you can get your window repaired, then you can try an emergency tape repair to try to keep the glass in the window frame. What's the best tape to use and how should you use it?

Suitable Tapes for Glass Repairs

If you have any emergency glass repair tape lying around the house, then you've lucked out. Designed to stick to glass easily and effectively, this kind of tape is probably the optimum way to hold shattered glass together. Don't worry if you don't have this kind of tape to hand and don't have time to pop to your local DIY store to buy some – you may well have other types of tape that can do the job as well. For example, all weather heavy duty tapes, packing tapes and general purpose duct tapes are a suitable substitute for specialist glass repair tape.

If all you have in the house is regular sticky tape, then it may be worth going out to buy a thicker and stronger alternative. Sticky tape is usually a bit too thin and narrow to cover shattered glass effectively — fiddling about to get multiple strips of sticky tape over a shattered window may simply see the glass fall out.

How to Tape Up a Window

Taping up a shattered glass window isn't hard, but you do need to be careful so that you protect yourself and keep the window intact. Following these steps may help:

First, cut your tape into strips before you start. Try to make the strips a little longer than the width or height of the shatter on the pane so that the tape covers the damage and ends on undamaged glass. Then, put on a pair of padded work or gardening gloves before you start working on the window — these will protect your hands if the glass shatters. Place the pieces of tape across the inside of the window. You don't have to cover all the damage, just shore it up. For extra support, repeat the process on the outside of the glass if you can.

Remember that a shattered window isn't just at danger of falling apart; it may also give someone a perfect entry point. A burglar would simply have to push through the glass to get into your home. To be on the safe side, call out a local glass windows repairs specialist as soon as you can to safely remove the shattered glass and replace it.