Our apartment has a lot of glass, tons of glass; specifically 12 multipaned windows, and 11 glass doors. It is one of the wonderful things about the apartment. Because of so much glass, every room, including the hall is filled with light. However, all that glass has a huge downside. It can break. And if you have young children, that is a particularly big problem.

The original glass in the windows and doors was particularly thin and fragile. And since it was so old, in some places it was scuffed and scratched, probably from cleaning with abrasive materials. We had debated replacing the glass but weren’t sure it was worth the expense.

Then one day while scraping old paint off a window, my hand slipped and the tool broke the glass. Luckily it was the tool, not my hand that went through the glass, and even more fortunate my son wasn’t standing near me. The glass broke into huge, lethal knife-like shards.

Replacing the glass was no longer a question. Luckily if you have decent homeowner insurance (we have Mapfre), which is relatively affordable in Spain they will subsidize the cost of tempered glass, as long as you use one of their contractors. We were able to replace all of the glass in the apartment, again it’s many square meters of glass, for less than 500€. We replaced the glass with tempered glass, which is stronger and instead of breaking into large shards, shatters into many small pieces, similar to a car windshield.

No longer do we have to worry about someone getting seriously hurt if a child tosses a bouncy ball against a sliding glass door. And not only did the 500€ increase our peace of mind, it increases the value of the apartment: both rental and resale.

Seems worthwhile to me!