Our Glass Shower Door Exploded at 3:30 AM

[barbeml]

Woke us from a sound sleep...sounded like a gunshot! (I checked, not bullet holes in the wall). Glass everywhere. No idea why it happened. Spent two hours sweeping up glass pebbles.

Anyone else ever experience this?

 

[minniecarousel]

This happened to us in our new house. We had a one year warranty on things like that & it exploded at about the 10 or 11 month mark. The guy with the warranty company wanted to know if one of our kids could have cracked it or out-right broke it -uh, NO, our only kid at the time was a few months old! We never got an explanation as to why it happened though. Is yours new?

 

[KristaTX]

I'm glad no one was in the shower.

 

[WDWHound]

Originally posted by minniecarousel
This happened to us in our new house. We had a one year warranty on things like that & it exploded at about the 10 or 11 month mark. The guy with the warranty company wanted to know if one of our kids could have cracked it or out-right broke it -uh, NO, our only kid at the time was a few months old! We never got an explanation as to why it happened though. Is yours new?

Actually, glass can explode if there is even a tiny defect in the glass and it is heated slightly, then cooled. This can cause the defect to sunnedly expand and trigger an amazing chain reaction. When this happens, its quite sudden and sounds just like a a gunshot. Usually all that is left afterwards is tiny little glass fragments that are very regularly shaped.

 

[TLinden16]

That happened to a friend of mine while she was giving her toddler a bath a while back. Thankfully, neither of them were cut. Glass shower doors make me nervous ever since.

Karen

 

[Towncrier]

Tempered glass can only take so much stress. All the little bumps and bangs build up over time. Eventually the stress can be enough to cause a catastrophic failure like the one you described.

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

Not exploded, but I punched mine when I was 16 (I have a slight temper, lol) and it broke all over me. Still have a huge scar on my left foot.

 

[Kim&Chris]

OMG, this is the first time I'm hearing about this problem.

When my DH decided to re-do the bathroom, he insisted on glass shower doors. I didn't want them, mostly because they are hard to keep clean (even the trackless ones) but I lost that battle.

Now I'm mad at myself for not standing my ground and resisting them! I'm going to tell him about this post & hopefully I can convince him to remove them once & for all.

 

[barbeml]

Thanks for the info! Ours was 11 years old, and came with the house (I bought new). I am replacing it with a good old-fashioned rod and shower curtain for now. Taking the frame out will be a mess.

Unfortunately, the shower in our master bath has glass doors too, and since it is a stall shower, I don't really have any replacement options when that one explodes.

DH wants to know why these things always happen to us at 3 AM! (Our smoke detector batteries always fail in the middle of the night).

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Originally posted by barbeml
DH wants to know why these things always happen to us at 3 AM! (Our smoke detector batteries always fail in the middle of the night).

And our smoke alarms are all tied together so when one goes off, they all do...Very loud in the middle of the night!

T&B

 

[TinkHappy]

That would just scar the poop out of me!!! On the other hand, it is best that this happened at night and not while you were in the shower.

 

[Pin Wizard]

Originally posted by WDWHound
Actually, glass can explode if there is even a tiny defect in the glass and it is heated slightly, then cooled. This can cause the defect to sunnedly expand and trigger an amazing chain reaction. When this happens, its quite sudden and sounds just like a a gunshot. Usually all that is left afterwards is tiny little glass fragments that are very regularly shaped.

<a href='http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb008' target='_blank'><img src='http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_11_3.gif' alt='Bug Eyed' border=0></a> Wow! I'm hoping mine aren't actually glass but something else.

 

[Figaro]

This happened with the glass door on our oven. Scared us half to death when we heard this bang sound during the night and got up to find that the oven (which was off and had been off since supper) door had shattered. The repair guy said that this happens fairly often, as he replaces the doors about once a month. Now, we've not had a problem with the replacement door and it has been over 5 years now, but I am much more careful around the glass door since this happened.