How to move a large mirror without breaking it

Three things break mirrors, and none of them is a dramatic drop. The first is flex. A 4mm sheet of glass at 160cm tall is stiff in a frame on a wall, but lift it out of that frame or carry it flat across your arms and it bows under its own weight. Glass tolerates almost no bending before it fails, and a tall mirror carried flat is bending the whole time.

The second is a point load. A box corner, a knee, the edge of a car seat, a strap pulled tight across the centre: each concentrates weight on one spot. Glass spreads a load well across its face and badly at a single point, so a pressure you would not notice on a tabletop will crack a mirror.

The third is the corners and edges. Nearly every mirror that arrives cracked has a chipped corner where the break started. Corners take the knocks when you go through a door frame or set the mirror down, and once a corner is chipped the next flex finishes the job. That order of failure tells you where to spend your effort: protect the edges and corners, keep the sheet upright so it cannot flex, and keep anything hard away from the face.

Mirrors over 180cm, and anything with 5mm glass, are heavier but not safer. The extra stiffness helps against flex, but a 30kg mirror is harder to carry smoothly and hits door frames harder. Treat a large full length mirror as a two-person job from the moment you decide to move it.

Every removal company blog tells you to put a big X of masking tape across the glass. It is worth understanding what that achieves, because people treat it as protection and it is not. Tape does nothing to stop a mirror cracking. What it does is hold the pieces together if the glass does break, so you are not sweeping shards out of a van or a box. On a mirror with a safety-backed film, which is every mirror we sell, the backing already does that job and the tape adds little.

There is also a cost. Masking tape left on glass for more than a day or two in a warm van leaves adhesive that takes a solvent to shift, and low-tack painter's tape can still lift the silver at a scratched edge. If you use tape, use painter's tape, apply it the day you move, and take it off the day you arrive.

The things that actually prevent a break are dull: corner protectors, a rigid sheet in front of the glass, an upright carry and a wedged position in the vehicle. Spend your time on those.

You can pack a mirror properly for under £20, and most of it is already in the house. The one thing worth buying is a mirror moving box, sold as a picture or mirror carton, which is a flat telescopic box that adjusts to the size of the mirror. Removal firms and the big self-storage chains sell them for £5 to £12. Everything else is optional in the sense that a moving blanket and some cardboard will do the same job with more effort.

Work on a flat, soft surface such as a bed or a blanket on the floor, with the mirror face up. Have everything cut and ready before you lift the mirror onto it, because every extra lift is a chance to knock a corner.

A packed 160cm framed mirror weighs 12 to 20kg and a 180cm or 200cm mirror can be 25 to 40kg. Weight is only half the problem. The other half is that a mirror is wide and thin, so it catches the wind, the door frame and the banister. Two people is the rule for anything over 140cm, not because one person cannot lift 15kg but because one person cannot steer a 160cm sheet around a corner.

Carry it upright, on its long edge, never flat. One person at each end, hands under the bottom edge and one hand steadying the top. Walk slowly, the person in front looks backward through the doorway and calls the gaps. Tilt the top towards you to clear a door head, never the bottom, because a mirror pivoting on its bottom corner is how corners chip.

On stairs, the person on the lower step takes the weight and the person above keeps the mirror from tilting into the wall. Pause on every landing and set it down on its edge on a blanket, not on a bare step. Measure the tightest turn before you start: a mirror box is about 10cm bigger than the mirror each way, and a 180 x 80cm mirror simply will not turn on some Victorian staircases, which is why we offer a two-person delivery and ask customers to check the route for anything in our large mirror range.

Gloves with rubber palms make a real difference on a smooth-wrapped box, and so does not wearing a belt buckle or a watch that can tap the face.

The rule for any vehicle is upright and wedged. A mirror lying flat on the boot floor or on folded seats is flexing with every bump, and a mirror on its back with anything on top of it is a crack waiting to happen. In a van, stand the mirror on its long edge against a solid wall, with a moving blanket between the wall and the box and a strap across it at about two thirds of its height. Tighten the strap enough to stop movement, not enough to bow the box. Put soft items, a mattress or sofa cushions, either side so it cannot slide and nothing hard can fall against it.

In a car, most 150 to 160cm mirrors fit upright across the back seat with the front passenger seat slid forward, resting on the seat base and leaning against the backrest at a slight angle. Wedge the base with a bag so it cannot slide on braking. A 170cm or taller mirror usually needs the rear seats folded and the mirror laid on its long edge diagonally, which is upright in the sense that matters: it is standing on its edge, not lying on its face. If it will only fit flat, do not move it that way; hire a van for an hour or use a courier that handles glass.

Never put a mirror on a roof rack. Wind load on a flat sheet is enormous and it will flex, and the first speed bump will do the rest.

Everything above is what you do yourself. When you order a mirror from this site, the supplier does it before you see it. Our designer range is packed in a carton braced with a plywood sheet in front of the glass and corner blocks at all four corners, and our entry range ships in a double-walled box with foam corners and a rigid face sheet. Both travel upright with couriers who handle glass every day, and anything over 150cm goes on a two-person service where the supplier offers one. The delivery page has the timings.

That is also why we ask you to unwrap the mirror on the day it arrives and look at it, rather than leaving it boxed until the room is ready. A corner chip under the wrap is far easier to resolve on day one than on day ten.

Despite all of the above, glass sometimes loses to a courier. If a mirror from us arrives with a crack, a chip or a frame mark, photograph the damage, the box and the shipping label and email us within 24 hours. We arrange a replacement, usually dispatched the same working day, and you do not post the broken one back. If the box is visibly crushed when the driver hands it over, you can refuse it at the door, which is the fastest route of all. The damage guarantee and returns page sets out the full process.

Keep the damaged mirror and its packaging until we confirm the courier does not want to inspect it. In most cases you can then dispose of it, wrapped and labelled as glass, at a household recycling centre. Do not put a broken mirror in a household bin unwrapped.

A mirror in storage fails for the same reasons as one in transit, just slower. Store it upright on its long edge, on a strip of carpet or a folded blanket, leaning no more than a few degrees against a wall with the face towards the wall and a sheet of cardboard between them. Never store it flat, never stack anything against it, and keep it away from radiators and damp. Humidity is what causes the black edge spotting on older mirrors; a copper-free backing, which our mirrors have, resists it, but a garage in winter will test anything. Leave the corner protectors on and the box around it if you have the space.

Take it down early, on a day when you are not rushing, and with two people if it is over 140cm. Lift it straight up off the fixings rather than pulling it away from the wall, because D-rings and keyhole plates catch on screw heads and the mirror tips forward. Put the screws, plugs and any batten in a labelled bag taped to the back of the mirror, so hanging it again at the new house is a ten-minute job rather than a trip to the shop. If the mirror used a split batten or French cleat, unscrew the wall half and tape it to the mirror half.

At the other end, the wall will be different. Brick, block, plasterboard and dot-and-dab all take different fixings, and the ones that held the mirror in the old house may not be right for the new one. The how to hang a mirror guide walks through choosing fixings by wall type, and the full length wall mirror page covers the hanging hardware itself. If you would rather not drill in a rented place, the same mirror can usually be used as a leaner with an anti-tip strap, or swapped for a free standing mirror.