Broken Glass in Carpet and Rugs

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Should a Professional Cleaner and Restorer take on the liability of removing broken glass from a carpet or rug?

You need to consider a few things before proceeding with glass cleanup from a carpet:

1. How tall is the carpet fiber – do we have small shards that are down between the fibers?
2. How dense is the fiber – did the glass work its way down or is it all sitting on top? EXAMPLE: A velvet plush carpet.
3. A low cut pile or loop commercial carpet, MAY give up all the small pieces.
4. How about the glass? Is it safety plate, or a crystal piece that shattered into many small pieces?
5. What environment are we in? A day care or the warehouse office of a steel mill where everyone wears steel toed work shoes with inch thick sole
6. You could get a “Liability Waiver” or “Consent and Agreement” signed. They don’t always hold up in court. Also, they don’t prevent injury. :)
7. You could see what the insurance company’s opinion is on replacement. They have replaced items with glass in them.                                                                                                                               A very high end rug cleaner, I know, had the following experience: 
   "One of my rug retailers had a brick thrown through his display window, affecting almost 50 rugs (most folded up in a stack, underneath the window). Very old glass, almost an inch thick - not safety glass. I turned the dusting/cleaning job down, and informed the store owner and insurer (who should have known better)that for liability reasons, all affected rugs needed to be claimed and replaced. Needless to say, I lost a big sale, and my friend had the kind of sales day a rug retailer can only dream about... There is no way any of the parties could guarantee 100% removal of the glass shards. I put my recommendation in writing, and advised the retailer to insist on a release of liability letter from the insurance co if he had any resistance from the adjuster. The ins. co. agreed with me, even though the claim was enormous. The replacement pane of glass was also very expensive (more than 10K), and had to be shipped from Italy.
   The brick was thrown by a drunk street person, and it was all caught on a traffic cam."

The release was brought up to prod the insurance company to do the right thing. I was told, in this case, they didn't need prodding.

I know this is a unique situation but..... you need to think about it, carefully, before attempting to remove broken glass in carpet and rugs.                                                                                                                    I don’t have a “one fits all” answer.

On restoration jobs it is always better to remove, the mold and bacteria affected porous material, rather than claim you killed it. In broken glass, in carpet and rugs, situations  it could* be better to remove the item rather than take on the LIABILITY of possible consequences of glass pieces, still being there, after you attempted removal.
(*some I’ve talked to say “always”)

Be careful!

        Dennis