Commercial & Industrial · 24/7 dispatch
Commercial Glass & Window Repair
Broken, cracked and failed glass in commercial buildings — storefronts, windows, entrance doors and partitions. We secure the opening first and glaze it properly after, we repair systems whoever installed them, and dispatch runs 24 hours a day from our shop in Mississauga.
Commercial glass repair is two jobs, and they happen in that order: make the opening safe, then put the right glass back in it. A shattered storefront at 9pm needs the glass cleared and the opening boarded so the building can be locked and left. The unit that replaces it is made to size, so it arrives days later — which is why any honest answer to "how fast can you fix it" is we can secure it tonight and glaze it properly this week.
Canuck Door Systems has been doing both halves across the GTA since 1979. We are not a glass shop: we make and install the aluminum framing too, so when the frame is bent, the thermal break has failed or the door has dropped out of square, we can say so and quote it rather than glazing a new pane into a frame that will break it again. Dispatch runs 24 hours a day from our shop in Mississauga.
Glass & window services
Right now
Broken glass, an opening that will not lock, a hazard on the pavement — the same-night half of the job.
Emergency Glass Repair & Board-Up
The same-night half of a glass call: clear the opening, board it into the frame, measure, and glaze on a return visit.
Planned glass work
Glass that has failed rather than broken — fogged sealed units, cracked lites, and low-E retrofits across an elevation.
Window Glass Replacement & Reglazing
Planned glass work in frames that are staying — fogged sealed units, cracked lites and low-E retrofits across an elevation.
For a replacement rather than a repair, see 19 aluminum windows and doors replaced for a Toronto daycare, on site in November and finished in December.
If the glass is broken right now
Four things, in order, and none of them require you to know what kind of glass it was.
- Keep people away from it. Tempered glass that has broken can keep dropping out of the frame for hours; annealed glass leaves shards standing in the rebate.
- Photograph it before anything is touched. Adjusters ask for this and it takes ten seconds — the opening will look completely different once it is cleared.
- Call the 24/7 line. Tell us the building, the opening, roughly how big it is and what floor it is on. That is enough to send the right crew with the right kit.
- Do not tape it and hope. Tape holds fragments for a photograph. It does not make an opening secure, weathertight, or safe to stand under.
We clear the remaining glass, board the opening, and measure for the replacement on the same visit — so the unit is on order before we leave, rather than after a second trip to measure.
What actually breaks, and what it means
Glass fails in a small number of recognisable ways, and the failure tells you whether you are looking at one pane or the start of a pattern across the elevation.
| What you are seeing | Usual cause | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Shattered into small blunt pieces | Tempered glass, impact or an edge nick | Safety glazing doing its job — the lite is finished, the frame is intact |
| A long clean crack, no impact point | Thermal stress: sun on one part of the lite, shade on another | Often repeats seasonally on the same elevation unless the make-up changes |
| A crack starting at the edge | Edge damage from installation or frame movement | Check the frame before reglazing — a bent frame will break the new lite too |
| Haze or moisture between the panes | Failed edge seal on an insulating unit | The unit is replaced, not cleaned. They tend to fail in batches on one elevation |
| Glass intact, opening not secure | The frame, the lock or the closer failed — not the glass | A door repair, not a glass one |
| A hole with radiating cracks | Impact or forced entry on annealed or tempered glass | Consider laminated glass on the reglaze if it has happened before |
Board-up first, glass after — why it is two visits
Nobody carries commercial glass on a truck, and any company that says it does is describing stock residential sizes. Tempered and insulating units are made to your measured opening and cannot be cut, drilled or edged after manufacture, so there is a fabrication lead time on every single one. That is the physics of the product, not a scheduling excuse.
What we can do the same night is make the building safe and secure: clear the glass, board the opening into the existing frame without damaging the framing, and take the measurements for the replacement. Then the new unit is glazed in on a scheduled visit, the plywood comes out, and the opening is finished properly. The full sequence is on emergency glass repair & board-up.
Which page you actually need
"Commercial glass" covers four different jobs and they are quoted differently. This is the routing we use on the phone.
- The glass is broken now and the building will not lock — that is emergency glass repair & board-up, and it is a phone call rather than a form.
- The glass has failed rather than broken — fogged sealed units, a cracked lite, a low-E retrofit across a whole elevation, with the frames staying put. That is commercial window glass replacement & reglazing.
- It is the door that is the problem — the closer, the pivot, the patch fitting, the lock, or glass in a door leaf. That is commercial glass door repair.
- It is the shopfront around the door — glass in storefront framing, as part of the retail elevation. That is storefront glass repair & replacement.
If you are not sure which one you have, send a photograph of the opening and we will tell you — it is faster than describing it, and it is what our estimators do anyway.
What we repair
Everything glazed in a commercial building, whoever supplied it.
- Storefront glazing — fixed lites and full bays in aluminum framing, at grade and at height.
- Commercial windows — fixed units, operable vents, sealed insulating units, spandrel panels.
- Entrance doors — glass in aluminum leaves and all-glass doors, plus the closers, pivots, patch fittings and locks around it.
- Interior glazing — borrowed lites, glazed partitions, office fronts and vision panels.
- The frame, not just the glass — gaskets, glazing tape, stops, sealant, thresholds and anchoring, replaced with the unit rather than reused around it.
Glass going back in
The replacement is not automatically what was there before. A lite that has broken twice is telling you something, and the reglaze is the least expensive moment to change the specification.
| Glass | Typical commercial thickness | Specified for |
|---|---|---|
| Monolithic annealed | 6 mm | Interior, non-safety locations only |
| Tempered | 6 mm | Doors, sidelites and anywhere the code requires safety glazing (CAN/CGSB-12.1) |
| Laminated | 6.38 mm and up | Security, forced-entry delay, sound reduction, overhead glazing |
| Sealed insulating unit | 25 mm overall (6 / 12.7 / 6) | Every exterior opening; the cavity is air or argon |
| Low-E sealed unit | 25 mm overall, coating on an inner face | Energy retrofits, and the sensible default on any exterior reglaze |
| Security film | Applied to glass already in the opening | Holding fragments and delaying entry without replacing the glass |
Full make-up, thickness and reglaze-or-replace detail is on window glass replacement; this page is where the glass is broken rather than merely tired.
When it keeps happening
Three call-outs to the same pane is not a glass problem. If it is impact, laminated glass and a rolling shutter or grille cost less over two years than repeated emergency glazing. If it is thermal stress, the make-up or the shading is wrong and the same lite will crack again next spring. If it is the door dropping and stressing the glass, the fix is the hardware. We will tell you which one you have, because we would rather sell the answer than the same pane four times.
Glass and glazing work across the GTA
Glass and aluminum jobs from our own project files — real clients, real buildings.
Doodle All Daycare Inc
Replacement of exterior windows with all new black anodized aluminum windows and…
Sable Metal Fabrication
Replaced outdated glass-and-aluminum windows with modern, energy-efficient units.
PCI Pharma Services
Replaced the exterior glass-and-aluminum storefront door and the surrounding windows.
Centurion (Dundas) Holdings Limited
Supply, and install, Windspec 5500 HTP series clear anod.
Canada's Wonderland
Clear-anodized aluminum storefront and window systems for the Operations Building — a glazed entrance with matching sidelite, plus awning and fixed units.
Canadian Millwork
Shelburne Dental
Replaced the exterior glass-and-aluminum storefront doors and windows, plus interior glass-aluminum frames and wood doors.
Toronto Catholic District School Board
Removed and replaced ten aluminum storefront entrances at St. Albert Catholic School, inside one summer shutdown.
Four decades of glass for names Ontario knows — Canada’s Wonderland, Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, the LCBO, Metrolinx, Marriott & Hilton hotels, the University of Toronto — plus thousands of businesses across the GTA. Dependable people, quality products, since 1979.
Glass repair across Toronto & the GTA
We run glass calls right across the core GTA and out into the wider Southern Ontario belt, dispatched from our shop in Mississauga — central to the region rather than at one end of it. Emergency work runs 24/7, every day of the year, board-up included.
Core GTA
- Toronto
- Mississauga
- Brampton
- Vaughan
- Markham
- Scarborough
- North York
- Etobicoke
- Richmond Hill
- Oakville
- Burlington
- Milton
Southern Ontario belt
Not on the list? Be honest with us about the distance — a planned reglaze travels well, a 3am board-up call to Niagara does not. We will tell you either way rather than leave you waiting. See all service areas
What glass repair costs
Glass is priced per unit, so the useful question is what drives the number. Nothing here is a mystery, and none of it is decided by how urgent the call is — an after-hours rate is an hourly premium, not a different price for the glass:
- The size of the unit — glass price scales with area, and large lites need more hands
- The make-up — monolithic tempered, laminated, or a sealed insulating unit with low-E and argon
- Whether the location requires safety glazing by code rather than by choice
- Access — ground level off a ladder, a boom lift, or a swing stage above the third floor
- Whether the opening has to be secured tonight and glazed later, which is two visits
- Frame condition — gaskets, stops and sealant that have perished get replaced with the glass
- The hour — after-hours and weekend call-outs carry a labour premium
Board-up and glazing are quoted separately, because they are separate visits. We tell you the board-up cost before we roll and the glass cost once the unit is measured — tempered glass is made to size and cannot be recut.
Common questions about commercial glass repair
Is a broken window an emergency?
Treat it as one if the opening is no longer secure, no longer weathertight, or has glass left in the frame that can still fall. A cracked pane that is intact and above head height can usually wait for a scheduled visit; a shattered storefront at street level cannot, and neither can a fire exit whose glass is gone. The test we use on the phone is simple: can the building be locked and left tonight? If not, it is an emergency and we board it up.
How much does it cost to repair broken glass in a commercial building?
It is driven by the size of the lite, the make-up (monolithic tempered, laminated, or a sealed insulating unit), the access, and whether the opening has to be secured first. Two visits cost more than one — a board-up tonight plus glazing when the unit arrives is a different number from a single planned reglaze. We give the board-up cost before we roll and the glass cost once we have measured, and we do not price the glass differently because you called at midnight.
Can broken glass be repaired, or does it have to be replaced?
In a commercial building it is replaced. A chip in a windshield can be filled because laminated automotive glass is built for it; architectural glass is not. Tempered glass that has been broken has released its stress and is finished, a cracked annealed lite is a safety-glazing failure waiting to happen, and a sealed unit with a broken lite has lost its cavity. What can genuinely be repaired is the frame and the hardware around the glass, which is often what actually failed.
What can I use to temporarily fix a broken window?
Tape holds fragments together for photographs and nothing else — it does not make an opening secure or weathertight, and it leaves loose glass in a frame above a pavement. The real answer is a board-up: the remaining glass is cleared out, and plywood is cut and fixed into the frame so the building locks tonight. Ours is done with the glazing stops so the frame is not damaged, and the plywood comes out the day the new unit goes in.
Can you fix a blown or fogged double-glazed unit?
The haze cannot be cleaned out — the moisture is sealed between the panes, on surfaces no one can reach. A double-glazed window is an insulating glass unit, and when the edge seal fails, humid air enters the cavity and condenses inside it. The unit gets replaced; the frame usually does not. That is planned reglazing rather than a repair, and it is covered on our window glass replacement page.
Do you repair glass you did not install?
Yes, and it is most of what we do. We service commercial storefronts, windows, entrance doors and partitions regardless of who supplied them, including framing systems no longer manufactured — those jobs start with identifying the frame and the glazing method before anything is ordered. Because we do the framing side of the trade as well as the glass, when the answer is that the frame has to go we can quote that instead of handing you to another contractor.
How fast can you get there?
Crews dispatch from our shop at 1645 Bonhill Road in Mississauga, which is central to the GTA rather than at one end of it, and the emergency line is answered 24 hours a day. We will give you a real arrival window on the call based on where the crew is, and if the honest answer is three hours we say three hours. What we will not do is quote a fixed response time on a web page that no one can hold us to.
What is the strongest glass for a commercial opening?
For resisting a person trying to get in, laminated glass — two lites bonded to a plastic interlayer that holds the fragments and the opening together even after the glass breaks. Tempered is about four times stronger than ordinary annealed glass of the same thickness and breaks safely, but it still leaves the frame empty, so it is a safety product rather than a security one. Where break-ins are the recurring problem, the honest answer is often laminated glass plus a shutter or grille rather than thicker glass alone.
Will our insurance cover it, and can you invoice them?
Glass breakage is commonly covered, and the paperwork usually needs the same three things: photographs of the damage before anything is touched, an itemised invoice, and the date and time of the call-out. We photograph every emergency opening on arrival as a matter of course and itemise board-up and glazing separately, which is the format adjusters ask for. We invoice you, not your insurer.
Glass down now, or a repair to schedule?
Call and we dispatch 24/7 — the opening gets secured tonight and glazed properly after. Not urgent? Send us the building and we’ll quote the glass.