The Rodent's Burrow: Gelled colloid versus stainless steel
I'm reminded of an experience in college. I had a glass-front stereo cabinet. One day, while I happened to be looking at the cabinet, the glass door shattered. There was no impact, it just shattered. And, to make it more exciting, all the little pieces shattered afterwards. In fact, for nearly an hour, I watched while pieces spontaneously shattered into smaller pieces. Kinda like watching corn pop, only not.
I still don't really have any clue why that happened, nor have I encountered anyone who has had a similar experience. It was very very bizarre.
UPDATE: 68 comments so far, mostly from people who have experienced this same phenomenon. See especially THIS COMMENT which contains a fairly good explanation of why this happened.
I can't answer for the shattering without provocation, but I can speak to the continual shattering.
I was present when someone threw a small pebble and accidentally struck the glass on a movie poster case. The pebble was quite small, and did not do much damage on the knockthrough, but did cause several cracks in the glass. These cracks propigated through the remainder of the glass over the course of the next half hour until it had shattered into the small pieces safety glass is designed to make. All the while the glass shards stayed together in the pane, until the individual who caused this rather beautiful display knocked the pane out so that he could clean up the glass as best he could. Even then, what shards remained were still trying to crack into safety glass quasi-cubes.
Therefore, I'd suspect that the corn popping effect is simply a trait of safety glass. Might the initial spontaneous shattering have also been related, like a manufacturing defect?
Exploding Glass - The Michigan Story
Well, Dr Bacchus was commenting about Ken Coar's glass experience and brought up a rememberance of spontaneous glass breakage. This reminded me of a story, so I thought I would share....
As Moose said via trackback, we had a similar experience with a pinball machine glass cover. Safety glass is designed to shatter into small non-sharp pieces. I guess it is unstable when shattered and continues to pop apart for a while. I guess the convection or uneven cooling caused it to break apart. It was quite strange to watch and very loud on the initial crack.
I have also had a strange experience with glass. I am a student and was sitting in my english class one day, when a glass that had been filled with water for several days spontaneously shattered,imploded even. nothing had hit it at all.
I have had two experiences with exploding glass. The fist happened in a gym. I was on a stationary bike staring ahead at 3 empty squash ball courts. Suddenly the middle court's entire glass front shattered into tiny pieces. It sounded like a gunshot. Everyone was astonished that it had happened since there was no one in the vacinity. I was the closest at 5 feet away on a bike. The second experience happened today. I own two pinball machines (Torpedo Alley - 1988 Data East, and The Getaway High Speed II - 1991 Williams). Today I removed the safety glass top of the Data East Machine to look at the playfield. After I had set the glass on the floor and started to stand up it shattered. I had already let the glass go and it was stable, but it shattered anyway. Several of the pieces managed to fly all over the room. Some as far as ten feet away. And although safety glass is disigned to shatter into small pieces, the pieces are still sharp - I received several small cuts to my arms and legs since I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. I even had a small shard sticking out of my cheak. Not sure what caused it to break, but now I'm in the market for a new glass top for my machine.
Last wednesday night, i had a friend over. while we were sitting in another room, we heard a shattering from the kitchen area. we looked all over the house, and found nothing. today, my husband opened the kitchen cabinet where we keep our drinking glasses and found shattered glass all around them on the floor of the shelf. none of the other glasses were broken, and there was no one near the cabinet or kitchen at the time of explosion. the house was about 68 degrees. any ideas?
Last night we were awakened by a huge explosive noise coming from the ensuite in our room. We investigated to discover that the glass bowl vanity had completely disintengrated and was no longer sitting on the cabinet but had exploded and covered the whole room in shattered glass. We were in shock and still are and vary wary of replacing the bowl with another glass one. Had someone been in the bathroom at the time, they would have been severely injured by flying glass an
not to mention the shock that would have occurred. This was a bizarre experience. This website has been helpful to us, as everyone we have told today has just looked at us very strangely.
We were having dinner this evening when we heard a strange noise and got up to investigate. Our cat was at the back sliding glass door looking upset so we assumed an animal had approach the door and went to see if there was a cat or dog outside. What we found was that the glass top of our patio table had spontaneously shattered. We could find nothing that would cause this to happen. No projectile or object. Totally strange.
I have had a similiar experience, about 3 years ago when the family was asleep I awoke to a Crash like sound from the bathroom everyone was asleep mind you,and When i went into the bathroom there was a hole in the glass for the shower as if someone had punched it it was a huge hole not all of it shattered yet, then my family woke up came into the room and the glass started shattering right in front of us so we cleared out. at first we thought it might have been pressure or something but it a sealed glass at all there was about a 1 foot tall space above and a 4 inch space below.
I'm glad to know we are not alone. Today our family came home from shopping to find my husband's glass of tea, he had left on the bar, shattered into several small pieces. Even the larger pieces were shattered but held together. The glass had flown in all directionsin about a 5 foot radious. The house was about 70 degreese and we could not find anythig that would have struck the glass to cause the explosion. Very wierd!
I was eating breakfast the other day when I heard a crash in the kitchen. I found nothing, but when I later opened the dishwasher (which was not on) I found that a drinking glass had shattered into very small pieces. It amazed me, and I had no explanation.
I had a wierd experience last evening. I returned from work and decided to put some things in the dish washer.
I picked up a tumbler - a thick bottomed type of whiskey glass. As I walked over to the dishwasher the glass spontaneously
exploded in my hand, with a loud explosion. Fortunately most of the glass went away from me and ended up in the dishwasher
and on the floor of the kitchen. The larger chunks of class had gone almost opaque with the number of internal cracks in it.
We had had these glasses for over 25 years with no problem. I hate to think what could have happened if someone had been gonig
to drink from the glass when it exploded. My hand is still stiniging this morning - though no glass is embedded in it.
I was really shaken up after the incident.
I was in the bedroom when I heard a loud crash in the kitchen. It sounded like somebody slammed a plate on the floor. When i Went into the kitchen I found the tempered glass top to one of my frying pans, that i had washed about an hour ago, in a hundred pieces on the kitchen counter. There was no explanation, it was as if someone had smashed it with a hammer.
I am reassured to find this website with the comments. I was in my bedroom on the phone just half an hour ago and all of a sudden heard a loud explosion like fireworks, but it seemed to be coming from my bedroom door (made of glass). When I opened the door, I found that the glass had been shattered and was continuing to shatter into tiny pieces. Its still happening as I type, though the pieces are all still in position. I got really freaked out because tonight is Halloween and also because my phone conversation at the time this happened was really intense and I was very emotional as a result. Although I don't know the explanation for the glass shattering, it is reassuring to know I'm not alone.
Our glass-topped patio table just shattered. I was wondering if it had something to do with the cold temps we have had lately in San Diego, but now that I have read of all these other experiences, I don't know.
We too had a recent experience with a glass shower door inploding into a zillion pieces. Our baby was taking a bath and his mother reached in to take him out and he pressed on the door at which time it exploded. It was an extremely scarely experience. He and his mom suffered from lacerations to their bodies. This may have been the result of a defective glass door or I wonder can it have been something else? Reason I wonder is we have an unusal low pitched sound that sounds like water that comes into our home at night, only and has a deafening pitch to it. Can it be noise pollution is breaking glass?
To whom it may concern, Tempered safety glass is required by law today and is very safe. Although in very rare cases tempered safety glass can break for no apparent reason. The reason is because safety glass is heat treated durring manufacturing to make it very hard to break durring its life time. Unfortunately its it is possible for a random piece to be flawed durring this process thus causing one in million to break for no apparent reason. The odds are this happening to you are like being struck by lightning. Slim to none. In the old days plate glass was used which was NON safety glass. Plate glass of yesteryear was unsafe breaking into big jagged pieces which was in those days was seriously injuring people . The goverment stepped in and created laws governing glass and its safety today. Rest assured your glass is safer than ever before in mans history.
I WAS HOLDING A GLASS WITH DISOLVING PAIN KILLERS IN IT AND ALL OF A SUDDEN THE GLASS EXPLODED IN MY HAN D I CAN NOT EXPLAIN THIS AS HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE THE BASE OF THE GLASS WAS ONE INCH THINK AND WHEN IT SHATTERED IT BECAME CLOADY AND WAS IN VERY SMALL PIECES
That last was Too FUNNY. I'm laughing out loud in Borders right now. I'm crying, for crying out loud. Really. Tears. IN MY EYES.
I needed that.
Wow. So glad I found this journal. This has happened to me not once, but twice in 3 months. Still don't know why, but I'm glad to know I don't have a spirit in the house that dislikes my glassware :-)
In November I had a small ladies get-together at my house. After the party, I was talking to the 2 remaining guests when we heard a crash of sorts in the kitchen. One of my wine glasses on the countertop had broken - no - exploded into tiny pieces. These are heavy thick glasses. The cat was outside and there was no evidence of a fall. We were mystified, and then I let it go.
Last night I was watching TV, hubby in the office, and I heard a "tinkling" shattering sound faintly in the kitchen. My honey searched the kitchen, and when he opened the glassware cabinet, one glass (I think a thick tumbler - hard to tell because it was in such small pieces) had exploded all over that shelf of the cabinet.
Has anyone figured out why this happens? I was freaked out since this happened last fall too. Do I have some sort of vibrational energy butting heads with my 70 degree house? Or do I need to stop taking hand-me down glassware?
Well what can I say it happed to us less than an hour ago. The glass which my fiance had finished her cordial was sitting on the bench about 1.5 meters away. She was facing an opposing bench and I was leaning on it facing the glass talking. I was practically watching it when it exploded with a bang. It was at night and the glass had had a cool drink in it 15 minutes previous. In the split second it took to flinch and focus all I got to see was the bits of glass flying out onto the floor. So I've jumped on the net - firstly I'm please we're not alone - any scientific answers out there?
Shower door was shattered when we got home last night...no break in, just a million pieces of tempered glass where a clear surface used to be. Reading up on some glass websites I found: Careless handling and improper installation sometimes produce damage, which leads to “spontaneous breakage” or “delayed breakage”. This means that occasionally a sheet will not shatter immediately at the time of damage, but perhaps weeks later. Inclusions in glass such as NiS can also trigger a delayed breakage effect. Nickel sulphide inclusion, also known as NiS, occurs during the manufacturing process for float glass. In a glass batch, nickel-rich contaminants such as stainless steel might be present, and then combine with sulphur to form nickel sulphide inclusions. Although some spontaneous breakages occur due to the above-mentioned factors, much breakage is called "spontaneous" just because there is no easily visible cause.
I am so glad this website is here. Two years ago I had new shower doors installed, and last night, I heard a loud noise toward the back of the house. At first, I thought the patio roof had caved in because of the storms/hail we had that day, only to see that is was my shower door in tiny pieces on the floor. The glass was still making noise like rice crispies, totally freaky! The other door is perfectly fine. I'm glad to know my house isn't possessed!
Personally, I am glad to see that I am not alone in this either, but tonight about an hour and a half to two hours ago the same thing had happened to me.
It was a glass door that was taken out of it's entertainment center at the time. I in fact had been moving it all over the place and before i could set it down one last time the thing exploded in my hand. Glad I didn't get cut.
But, it continued to crackle and pop for nearly 2 hours afterwards.
Now for an explanation I have a theory. Frequency's like sound travel in waves. And it is a fact that a certain tone of noise can shatter a glass because of the waves that the sound travels at. Frequency's cannot be heard but do still travel in waves, and the wave itself may be the cause of the break. In frequency I mean HF, UHF, VHF, or possibly even Microwave (although I have kind of ruled out microwave because of the side effects on people that microwave causes, and none of them are present).
Frequency's may be the cause of this, but I can't be sure. Anyway if anyone else has an idea or theory it would be cool to see. ;)
Also can you leave a geographic location as I am researching what causes this. I am in Palm Springs, CA.
Well, I too am very pleased to find this website because it's kind of nice to know that my weird experience isn't the only one.
About two weeks ago I had washed the dishes and wiped off the kitchen counters, then I took a glass ( a thick based one like an "old fashioned" or whiskey glass ) from the kitchen cupboard and had a drink of water. I left the glass in the middle of the kitchen counter and went into my living room to work on my computer.
After about 20 or 30 mins there was a LOUD explosion from the kitchen. When I went to look ... the kitchen counter,floor and window sill were all covered with bits of glass.
I was absolutely amazed by what I saw and all the pieces ( large and small ) were all "crazed". There was nothing to cause it.
Doesn't anyone know what would cause it to happen ? Glass fatigue ??...........??? I live in East Yorkshire, England.
This seems to be more common than I thought. Was just about to give in to angry ghosts and stuff. -- Last weekend, after shopping, my wife and I stopped in our neighborhood pub. We had just received our drinks (first of the day), and a woman sitting next to my wife went to the ladies room. Just before she got back to her barstool a somewhat loud explosion occurred. There were walnut-sized pieces of brown glass around about an 8' radius. Turned out to be a bar ashtray had blown up for no apparent reason. I was in shock, had to have several more drinks! Nobody was injured, and ther were other sober witnesses.
I have been trying to figure out what happened to my patio door. Two nights ago I awoke at 5:30am to hear a popping, crackling noise like rice crispies. I went out into the living room to see my patio door was completly shattered, and still shattering. The door is still intact, but the pane is completly shattered, and it looks like something hit it. At first I thought someone had thrown something from outside, but I live too high up for that to happen. Then I noticed that it was only the inside pane, the outside pane and the screen were fine!
My apartment building is approx. 30 years old, and I thought that maybe after 30 years, the glass couldn't hold up anymore... that's the only explanation I can think of..
If anyone can figure this out please let me know!!!
I was just in our bedroom changing the sheets when I heard what sounded like a water pipe exploding and water rushing out. I checked through the entire house but nothing. So I took the wash out to the washing machine on the deck and glanced up. I saw that the oblong patio table glass top at the other end had exploded all over the deck. It was still making noise. I cannot understand what causes this to happen but I picked up a few pieces and it kept exploding and I got a sliver inbedded in my hand. What do the manufacturers say about this scary problem? I shudder to think we could have been eating our dinner out there when it happened. It threw glass more than 10 feet around with such force that it stuck in a rug near the door.
I wanted to share this website, http://www.jadachesney.com/ as it tells the story of a poor sweet little girl who was injured by a patio table exploding.
I agree with the frequency theory...with a all of the "Waves" around us, it makes me question the impace. (Radio waves, TV waves, Satellite waves, cell phone waves, microwaves, etc etc. )
Very frightening stuff.
Good site. Yesterday as I was leaving from work, I was sitting in my car waiting to turn onto the road. There was no traffic coming from the left, but farther away on the right. Suddenly my half open driver's door window just shattered. This is a rural setting and the closest trees were 100 yards away, no cars, trucks, or any vehicles coming from the left. The vehicle coming from the right was still several hundred yards away.
The glass shattered in all directions - inside, outside, over the windshield, on the top of the car, and into the backseat. Very fortunately my head was turned away and I only got a small cut on my left wrist.
I guess it is possible this was a stray bullet from somewhere, but I didn't find a slug in the car or just outside.
Just thought I'd share this - I was relieved to find other people are having similar experiences.
June 24, 2005 @10 am
It was nice to find this website to know that it does happen to others as it was rather disconcerting to see the patio door spontaneously shatter. It does look like someone punched a hole in it but there was no one near it when it happened. The entire door is still holding up except for the large hole although it is in a million pieces. If touched, the whole thing would just crumple. The outside door is still intact as it is the other door beside. Very strange.
Our shower door just shattered randomly. I didn't see or hear anything, but now it's completely spierwebed. Glad I found this site to know we're not crazy, hauneted or sleepwalking or something.
The glass door to my deck shattered several hours ago and is still crackling away. All the pieces are intact like some bizarre spider web. Just the inner pane of glass; the outer pane is fine.
My daughter and son-inlaw live up in Northern California. A few days ago their very large patio door shattered for no apparent reason. The temperature in this city has been in the range of 3 digits. My son heard the noise first, and perhaps he will go on line and share just exactly what happen.
I work at a locally owned pet shop that specializes in fresh and saltwater fish.This morning I arrived to work and was the first one there. I noticed some water on the floor and upon closer inspection there was a small amount of glass and a beta fish. Once I looked up to where the fish should have been I found the rest of the bowl the fish had been in. It was in the spot it should have been.
So it seems the bowl just shattered on its own. I was the the last one to leave the previous evening so there was no one or thing that could have done this. Very interesting indeed. I'm figuring that some defect could have caused this as I've heard of similar occurances before. Oh, don't worry the beta is still alive! :)
This morning our shower door exploded 10 minutes after my son exited the room (luckily). A friend of ours, nearby, had a similar experience one year ago. We live in China, perhaps manufacturing standards are lower here... We plan to use safety or security film on all glass of this type in future. And use only glass that is Internationally certified...
I just came home tonight and was brushing my son's teeth in the bathroom upstairs when we hear this shattering noise. We first freaked out but then I turned the stairway lights on and went downstairs, since we were alone upstairs. To our surprise, I found my knick Knack shelf door broken in a million pieces on the floor. It was made of tempered glass and it literally exploded before it fell on the floor because I found broken pieces in every shelf. This is the 5th glass things that breaks in my house for the past 2 dyas, so I wonder if this is some sort of energy stagnated in my house. 1st a rock broke my husband's windshield on his way home from work, then my housekeeper broke one of our crystal decorations, then my daughter broke a little rose vase, then my son broke a halloween lamp. All fours had an explanation but the glass door was totally a mystery. No one was in the house and we did not have an earthquake. I wonder if it is related to Halloween tomorrow. Hahahahaha, it was scary.
Okay- yesterday I was studying at my kitchen table and I heard a pop that sounded like a balloon. I got up and saw that the back patio sliding door was shattering. At first I thought someone shot something at my window,(since I heard my dog bark right before it happened.) but nope. There was no evidence of a rock, bb, etc. I just stood there shocked. What would cause this? To me it's just wierd!
Had a heavy drinking glass of kool aid explode today. I was not there but came home to find the mess. Did not shatter, split in half, up and down and blew the two sides about 4 inches apart. Koolaid went at least 5 feet around there. The two pieces were still standing on the counter. About 70 degrees, in new mexico if that helps anyone. I do have some interesting pics if anyone wants to see email me taya_shilah@yahoo.com
earlier me and my wife was sitting in our livingroom and i went to put a glass in the sink i didnt set it down hard nor did it break at the time,i went to walk away and could hear the glass breaking i thought it was weird so i looked down and heard it crack so i jumped back and the glass exploded,i have never seen or heard of this before until it about hit me in the face, the glass was shattered into like crystal formation? we are still kinda freaked out about this, this site has been great now i know it happens to alot of people, it was about 70 degrees, still can't fiqure out why it did it? it wasnt hot nor cold in here, just to weird.
We came home today to fine the glass in our patio slider had shattered into a million pieces with no explanation. It's still popping like rice crispies as I'm typing this. The screen door on the outside shows no sign of the window being hit and no one was here at the time it happened. It's a single pane glass door so I can't rule out that it wasn't hit.
We live in Southern California, it wasn't a particularly hot day (75) but it did cool down quickly this evening. The door is in direct sunlight throughout the afternoon/evening. I believe it's original construction and approximately 30 years old. I suspect its a combination of the frame expanding/contracting over the last 30 years from direct sun [it can get to over 100 degrees in the summer] and constant sliding/slamming. The old aluminum frames always make a loud bang in the evening as the contract very quickly when the sun goes down. The window repair guys are coming tomorrow to fix it - $350. We're getting new windows installed in 2 months - figures that this would happen right before hand.
Just happened to me. It was a water glass that had remained in the kitchen sink for 2 days before I washed it. I washed it with natural water (not cold or warm), wiped it with a piece of cloth and put it in the cabinet. About 5 minutes later, I was in the living room watching TV, I heard something breaking. When I opened the cabinet, the glass had turned into a million of pieces, and the big pieces were still breaking... I was looking for an explanation (other than ghosts and spirits :-)) and the nickel inclusions convinced me (http://desiredcreations.com/Misc_SpontGlass.htm).
My husband and I were reading in the living room when a glass candle holder on the end table beside us exploded. Nothing fell on it and it had been weeks since it had been used. It did not fall over and looked as though it exploded from the inside out. We are both very freaked out by this.
I am a window Cleaner and have been cleaning this large glass roof for the past 6 years i actually go up on it but keep most of my weight in the side rail made of iron any way the story goes i cleaned it last saturday and the following friday one panel just exploded for no apparent reason very freaky that this can just happen for no reason when talking to someone about this they informed me that the same thing happened to another glass roof not long before only in that case 2 seperate panels exploded on differing dates left me a little shocked to think what may of unfolded a week before hand
I hate to say that this is not a one in a million chance, - like being struck by lightening. This has happened to two of our shower walls, one in the main house and one in a studio at the back of our section. The main house explosion happened while we were in the lounge and we heard a noise like a gunshot from the bathroom - same experience as everyone else, tiny pieces of glass shattered all over the place still popping and cracking. No one in the room at the time. My daughter was on the way to use the bathroom when it happened but I had stopped her to ask her a question. Had she been in the room at the time she would have been a mess. The back studio shower wall was found shattered the same was this morning by my husband. Once again no one in the room, or even the studio when it exploded. The back studio glass was four years old, the main house possibly eight. That doesn't sound like a once in a lifetime occurrence to me, sounds like a dangerous flaw. Someone mentioned location, well I live in Auckland New Zealand.
On February 16, 2008, around 6:00PM in Lacombe Louisiana USA.
I had just finished rinsing a glass coffee cup with tap water and placing it into our kitchen sink. The cup had been siting on top of our counter for at least 4 hours, so it was room temperature.
I stepped out on the patio and my wife was in the bedroom. All of a sudden my wife heard a loud Shatter-sound, like someone dropped a dish onto our ceramic tile floor. When she went into the
Kitchen she found the glass cup was shattered in the sink. Glass was spread as much as 10 feet away. We have no idea what caused the glass to explode. There were times when we placed the cup full of water, into the Microwave to heat it before pouring coffee into it. We had been doing this for 2 years.
The house temperature was about 68 degrees. There was no one else in the house. Weird!!!
Sunday afternoon 2/17/2008 my nephew opened the shower door to turn it on, then he closed it. He then opened it to get in and the shower door exploded into a billion pieces. He said it sounded like a gunshot. The shower had just been used twice the same morning by other family members. We have no idea how that could possibly happen. He said it shattered and then dropped to the shower floor bouncing everywhere including on his body, toilet, sink, and floor. He was shaking when we finally heard him screaming from upstairs. We are very lucky he only received minor cuts. He is still picking glass out of his feet. I'm lucky my 2 small children weren't in that bathroom at the time. Their play room is connected to that bathroom. Our home is 2 years old and where the bathroom is doesn't receive any direct sunlight or extreme changes in temperature. We live in Florida and it was around 80 degrees that morning. I'm nervous for the rest of my showers in the house. All but 1 have glass doors.
This morning after I drank A glass of water I was putting the emtpy glass in the sink when a glass beside it suddenly exploded (or imploded actually). The pieces jumped into the air with a "patak!" sound, kind of like a gunshot or a ballon like sound. The pieces were crystalized and were still cracking 15 mins after.
It was quite freaky as I still have an aversion to glassware. Some say it has something to do with spirits and such...I'm not sure what to believe as I cannot make any sense out of this.
I also experienced a similar thing yesterday. After doing my dishes (with tap water, not cold or hot) I left a glass cup on my sink to watch an interesting documentary on TV when I heard an explosion from the sink...I quickly noticed that the glass cup had shattered but what really shocked me was that some glass particles were as far as 3-4meters from where the cup was. Until I found this site today I was thinking that someone was probably attempting to shot me from the kitchen window but shot the cup instead coz the sound was loud and ugly.
We have had over a dozen drinking glasses simply cut in half with greater precision than could be cut buy human some are inexpensive thick bottom tumblers the kids use the others are tall and short costa boda fine glasses, its as if someone or something has cut the glass like a piece of pipe we sometimes hear it and sometimes we go to the cupboard to get a glass pick it up and only the top half comes or we notice the glass beside or behind is in 2 pieces but always still sitting as if nothing happened in one piece even if you do pick up the half you grab, you can put it back on top as if still one piece not even the smallest chip or crack they still hold water some even stop cracking 5 or ten mm from completely separating some even crack through under the clear cost boda sticker that is still on the glasses.I honestly don't know what's happening but am very open to any explanation as its almost unnatural that this happens the exact same way over a dozen times in a 3 year old house we've lived in only 8 months (the previous house is only 4 blocks away) NSW, Australia any reason or help would be greatly appreciated, the house was blessed after moving in now using ceramic mugs to drink from.
I have just searched on the topic of exploding shower screens and found this site. We had a similar experience to others and are now having a battle with our insurance company.
In november last year we were sitting in our lounge one evening when we heard a massive explosion somewhere in the house. We went to investigate and found that our shower screen had shattered into a million pieces that covered every inch of the bathroom. Also the force of the explosion had propelled the heavy metal frame from the wall and sent it about 4 feet across the room smashing some floor tiles as it landed. The shock of this turned into horror when we thought of how just a couple of hours earlier our two small granchildren had been in the bath and could have been seriously injured or killed.
The screen had been in place for 8 years and we have no explanation as to why it should suddenly explode like this, however the insurance company will only pay up if an 'expert' provides them with a reason. A couple of bathroom specialists have told them that this does sometimes happen but they want to know why it happened in our case - and noone can tell them that as noone was there and ther is no evidence other than a broken frame and a million pieces of glass.Has anyone else faced this dilema. We live in Leicester, England
At the table last night, a wine glass half-filled with room-temperatures red wine exploded during dinner. It spread tiny pieces of shattered glass 4-5 feet away - in only one direction - and wine flew 5-6 feet away in same direction. For those of you atttmpting to research this phenomenon, geographically or otherwise, this happened in Maine, at close to sea level, with normal temps inside the house and 40s outside in March.
4/15/2008, Silicon Valley, CA - 4:30am
We awoke to the sound of the shower door (spontaneously) exploding! It's a tiny bathroom (toilet, shower) so the glass was all over the place (still "exploding"). Thank goodness neither one of us was in there at the time.
Checked the news that morning - no earthquake - a there were no extreme fluctuations in temperature. We've lived in this rental for 13+ years now with the same shower. Might just be one of those things.
Then again, these "spontaneous" occurrences appear to be happening more frequently...it makes me wonder.
Today I was putting dishes in the dishwasher. I picked up a thick-bottomed tumbler to put it in and it exploded in my hand. I can understand if the tubler was hot and had gotten chiled quickly but that wasn't the case. The glass had not yet been put in the washer. Nor did it impact anything or did I handle it rough in anyway. Strange stuff huh.
In the club where I usually work, the glasses we have are usually really strong and you uaually can drop them on the floor without smashing them.
Last night as I was holding one of these glasses and it exploded in my hand. The glass broke into thousands of pieces which flew away from my hand and a high speed.
It sounded just like somone had threw a glass against a brick as hard as possible.
There was no glass directy below where it smashed, however all the tiny shards were spread over a 15ft radius. I had quite a few tiny cuts all over my arms, hand and face as a result of this phenomenon.
There were witnesses who agreed with me that I applied no sufficient force to the glass that would cause it to do that.
One girl I spoke to about this said that "It has happened to one of the staff before". She also thougt that it might have something to do with static of electricity, but I am unsure.
I think it may have something to do with the glasses expanding and contracting due to them being cleaned in extremely hot water.
I also dissagree with thinking that heating and cooling may have caused this because the glass that smashed had cooled naturally, and hundreds of times I have taken boiling hot glasses and filled them with ice and cold pepsi, which has never caused a glass to smash in my presence.
I'm proper stumped about this.
If anyone has a scientific reason as to why this happens, I would love to know.
My son called me at work today, and told me he had come home from school to find one half of the shower door had exploded into a million pieces, and covered most of the tub, the floor and even into the hallway outside the bathroom. The house had been empty for about six hours. I have been trying since to understand how glass could just spontaneously explode, until I found this site. Without a blow to the glass, it leaves little except, resonant frequencies, or something similar created by sound. We have two dogs, but the hallway door leading to the bathroom was closed tight. The two track mounted wheel assemblies had flown in two different directions, and only one still had a small piece of glass still in it. Pretty scary stuff.
Actually it was me who smashed Dave's shower door. He owes me $50 from the Kentucky Derby, and hasn't payed up. So i snuck into his house and smashed his shower door into a million pieces. So much for resonant frequencies.
A similar thing just happened to me. I was having lunch and was holding my glass, having just taken a sip from it, when it suddenly shattered in my hand (and quite loudly too). The shards scattered all over my plate and the table. I only got one or two small cuts, thankfully.
The glass had been sitting in the dishwasher for about half a day, but it wasn't hot or anything, more like room-temperature. I have NO idea why it exploded like that, that was really weird.
On May 23rd in my kitchen no one was inside. And on the stove there was a frying pan and on the front of the stove top it was just sitting there and beside it was stationary glass lid. That with no one near it and probably 75 degrees not like the temperatures really even mattered but it just broke in a very loud noise. Wasn't the type of noise you'd here normally the glass didn't fly all over the room but it just exploded inside of the pan and around the counter and some on the stove all around it. For some reason unexplained just like most of the experiences here. Thats my experience thanks for reading.
i was @ my aunts cutting her grass when i was done i started edgeing when i was done i noticed a sound like some one was popping popcorn but i was in front of my aunts front door so i got curious WTF is this sound comming from then i noticed the security door bottom storm glass was shatterd so i called my cousin kadena to the front and it was shattered all over and makeing a popping sound from what i saw if you stare at the shattered glass long enough you can see the glass crack so after that i got the blower and made the glass fall out to prepair to clean it now i got glass all on the floor in between the two door now what i saw with next was really weard???
(i saw the glass jump and pop wierd huh)
i thought i was tripping cause it was hot as hell that day
so i went to clean it up before my aunt got home but still to this day i have no clue why the glass poped and jumped like that i guess i didnt give it time to explode cause i went ahead and knocked it out to get it up (very wierd)
my name is jerome call me if you have any answer as to why this happened i surely would like an answer to why it did what it did 773-440-0600
Oh well, I guess you can add Massachusetts to your list of the "unexplainable exploding glass phenomenon". My wife called me today to report that on the instant she walked into the house she heard an extremely loud CRASH that sounded like it came from upstairs. To her dismay she found the exact thing that everyone is describing here. The shower door had exploded and glass covered the entire bathroom floor 12X12 bathroom including the little toilet room next door. She also described the snap, crackle and pop of the glass as it continued to shatter for at least fifteen minutes after the original break. Interestingly, the hinges are still intact and have shattered chunks still in the brackets. If someone had been in the shower it would have been a modern day remake of the "psycho" movie complete with blood swirling down the drain.
The tempered glass must have some potential energy stored up in it and I have to think that the frequency/resonance theory might be the reason. If you think about it we have probably about 1000 cell phone conversations running through us right now..........
I am relieved I am not the only one to have had an exploding shower screen. In response to Barbara of Leicester, I too live in Leicester and the same thing happened to me this week. My shower cubicle had been fitted 7 years ago and had a sliding door, the glass in the door spontaneously exploded and lifted the frame completely off the runners at the top. I had showered about 4 hours previously and had not been in the bathroom since, it went with a huge bang and shot glass in all directions which continued to crackle for a while afterwards. I am just glad no-one was hurt. I am also very wary of getting into a shower cubicle again.
My name is Jacob I am 15 years old and today a very weird thing happened. My dad unpluged the satlite dish and the phone lines so i couldnt watch tlevision, talk on the phone or go on internet. When my parents left I went and repluged all of those wires so I could have something to do. Right after that I went down stairs and repluged the phone in the basment office and conected myself to internet. I was chating and liscening to some Heavy Metal music at full blast (loud enough to not hear a phone ring) and all of a sudden I hear a huge explosion. At first i tought it might be my dog that fell down the stairs, but he didnt so I went to check it out and I could hear this poping sound when I entered the bathroom and there were peices of glass everywhere and I could hear this poping sound. I could not beleive what I was seing, the shower my dad had made of 1 inch glass had completely exploded in millions of peices and only half of it was left standing even though it was also cracked everywhere in milllions of peices...Later after have read Greg's story my dad told me that the wires for our downstair's telephones go right under the upstairs shower where the glass broke...
This morning, roughly 9:45 A.M. in Minneapolis,after a hail storm yesterday (one of the biggest hail storms I had ever seen-and have no idea if this has anything to do with it) our stereo cabinet which is made of wood and tempered glass had one of the glass shelves inside the cabinet explode. The shelf that exploded only had a cable box on it that was slightly warm to the touch. We went upstairs to discover this and the tiny shards of glass were still crackling.
I see a lot of people have shared experiences here,(hey..I'm one of em!) just wondering if anyone could write in an actual theory to what exactly causes this.
Just searching for answers...
Thank you in advance
A man was staring at a wine glass at it exspoled some one needs to reserch this and if you can find a reasseon and show the new persident of the united stats u could be come one of the most smartes pepole in the world........ good luck
I too have just had an odd one... just 15 minutes ago, a tall vase containing nothing but a few plastic lillie's - made a loud bang. The kind of sound you get when you place a glass tumbler onto a glass table. At a closer look, it seems that the entire 1.5 Inch thick base of the vase has cracked through and through!!! Soo bizzare - like the rest of you have also said, nothing was near it at the time, so vibrations on the table that it was stood on - and its an ambient 28 degress C in my apartment. Kinda freaked me out a little!
I've got a story that happened when I worked on a cinema.One day I went to open some glass doors for the costumers to go out of the cinema. When I put my right hand on the handler to star to open the door slowly the glass door brooke instantly and completly falling on peaces on the floor. When this happened one peace o glass cut my right hand. Later one colleag of mine told me it was a source of glass cancer the reason for the phenomenon. I made a search and found this:
"The Achille Heel of a Wonderful Material: Toughened Glass
In recent years there have been a number of sensational reports in the media about “glass cancer” and “spontaneous glass fracture”, with stories relating to “glass raining down from highrise buildings”.
These stories refer to incidents where toughened glass windows shatter without warning. Although it is only recently that this so-called "spontaneous" failure of toughened glass has come to public attention, it has been known about since 1960. These failures are due to the presence of nickel sulphide inclusions. In fact, nickel sulphide inclusions in glass are quite rare. In a typical glass batch there will be one 5 µg inclusion per tonne of glass (an average concentration of 5 parts in 1012).
Though rare, the nickel sulphide inclusions are very troublesome and potentially dangerous when present in toughened glass. The reason for all the trouble is a delayed phase transformation in nickel sulphide. Nickel sulphide crystals have a high temperature and a low temperature form. The dense crystal form at high temperature swells on cooling to make a less dense crystal form at low temperatures.
In ordinary annealed glass nickel sulphide inclusions do not cause problems because the transformation occurs as the glass is cooled slowly during manufacture. However, the transformation is sluggish and when glass is rapidly cooled as part of the toughening process, the nickel sulphide remains trapped in its high temperature form until some years later when its transformation breaks the glass"
Wow, I always thought it was because of high winds and twisting... Oh, wait, that was the Hancock tower which is what I always think of when glass breaks without any apparent reason.
The treated glass theory is interesting, although I'm curious as to why it doesn't seem more prevalent on the 'net.
The same thing happened to one of my favorite scotch glasses long ago. Sadly, of the set of 4 cut glass lowballs my wife gave me about 10 years ago, they are all gone now (one albeit to only an edge chip, but I refuse to use glasses with chips).
Well, this morning at about 2am, my bf and I were woken up by a HUGE glass shattering crash coming from inside our apartment. We both got up to find what it was and came into the kitchen. There we found the 9x13 baking dish I had used to make brownies 2 days ago, shattered into pieces on top of the microwave. That is where I had set it about 5 or 6 hours before it had shattered. All the dish was still on the microwave, except for the little bit that had been hanging off because all of it didn't fit on top. Very weird. I'm thinking it was the radiation energy. But I had never heard of that happening before...
This evening, whilst preparing a barbeque, my daughter sat an empty pint glass (Guiness logo) onto the glass table top on the patio.
A short time after, she heard a bang and turned from the BBQ to see the glass shatter into many parts.
There was nobody near the glass, and there was nothing in the glass or on the table.
I am pretty sure Guinness glasses are not toughened, so this is definitely a mystery. If anyone does know of a scientific explanation for this phenomena, please let me know.
Tog
I was sure glad to find this website to know that this kind of thing is normal and not some freak occurence at my house.
I woke up this morning to the sound of glass shattering and jumped out of bed to invesigate. In the kitchen I heard a tinging sound coming from inside one of the cabinets... I opened the door and glass fell out. Upon further investigation I found that the middle bowl of three nested glass bowls had shattered into thousands of pieces. I guess this is another instance of spontaneous glass shattering. Luckily, in this instance, the glass breaker on my alarm did not trigger...
A friend of mine sent me this link to an article about a glass plane... in the article there is some information about the physical state of glass: it is not liquid, nor solid and is in constant movement... perhaps an explanation for these "random" glass shattering incidents.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370864,00.html
Hey, Today I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and I heard a glass smash, I went in to investigate, where to my surprise, a glass which had not been touched for hours had shattered into a million tiny pieces and left all over my room, it was a Guinness pint glass… Not toughened, with no cracks or chips… this is so weird among the many bizarre things that have been happening in my house lately!! An answer to this weirdness would be great!!
It happened me & my partnerless than 10 mins ago..Scared the damm hell outta us! sat in lounge heard a noise that sounded like a car crash in kitchen!..Both run out thinking my cat hard broke something big..& all it was was 1 of those thick Coca cola glasses with the emblem on..It was on the work surface with a bit of glass on the floor & was like a broken windscreen effect & still making popping noises!..Ive had paranormal activity in this house & was worried maybe it was that As my house was of `Normal` temp Not hot not cold.. WEIRED!!!
I had similar experience yesterday, and it absolutely freaked em out! I got home from work to find my glass sink
(2 inch glass) all shattered in very small pieces over the bathroom. There were even some pieces on top of the window frame! I was absoultely puzzled, and thought that someone had broken into the house and did this on purpose! However, nothing has been touched! But it looked like someone hammered the sink for quite some time!!
I am just glad that more people have seen this, and I don't have burglars or ghosts in the house! :)
Over the weekend, my husband and myself were taking out two glass shower doors each, at the same time. I was leading him to the door and CRASH, without sudden or jarring movements my glass exploded between my hands, spraying glass in every direction. A thought later, my husbands’ glass exploded! Our kid saw the whole crazy explosion. What a dangerous mess, even with safety glass.
I was at home a few weeks ago and my girlfriend was there with me we just had some diner we had a mixed salad in a bowl and some pasta on a plate I used the same salad and dressing as I always do we finished eating then watched a movie all of a sudden we heard a noise I turned the lights on and the bowl that was sitting on the table had exploded all over the floor of the living room we tried to see if anything had hit it or if it had fallen but there was nothing around to hit it and there was glass all over the table where it was sitting.. I have had a few more incodents ie plugs being pulled from the wall computers being turned on by themself but this was realy creepy..
I was so glad to find this site. I was lying in bed one morning half asleep when I heard a massive smash, I thought next door had thrown a vase or something against my wall where my head was. It wasn't until later that I noticed the empty drinking glass that had been on my CD cabinet for a couple of weeks was 'sliced' in half. It looked like it could have been done with a tool because of the precision of it. I found the top half of the glass next to my bed, it must have spun accross my room. I couldn't believe that such a tremendous noise could have come from that.
I've been thinking it was a spirit presence all this time, as it's not the first time spooky things have happened in my house. There's some convincing scientific explanations on this site though. I'm from south east England and the glasses were bought cheap from one of our most famous homestores beginning with 'I'. The remaining glasses have all broken while washing up...
We've just cleared the kitchen up after an exploding glass incident... Was quite scary. I have a few hours ago done the washing up with v v hot water and the items were dried on the sink, just 15 mins ago I got up to get my husband a glass of milk and choose a pint glass (one I've had for a couple of years) from the sink. As I literally put my hand on the glass it exploded with a bang all over the kitchen into cubed tiny pieces. It gave me a huge shock and felt and looked like someone had aimed a gun and shot at the glass through my kitchen window, very strange. The temperature is 24 degrees and its 11pm.
An engineer answers: Jay Whittaker 2004-12-10 was right in that safety glass was invented to avoid the sharp shards from normal glass. It is heat treated or tempered so that the faces are in compression and the core is in tension, which makes it very strong. The stored strain energy ensures that if fractured, it breaks into tiny fragments - considered relatively safe.
Unfortunately this energy also propels the fragments at high speed, sounding like a gunshot, and creating a hazard to eyes, skin etc. It also spreads the fragments through the room, into furniture, bedding etc - very hard to clean up, and an ongoing hazard to pets, bare feet, skin etc.
Spontaneous disintegration can occur - cause unknown. There are plenty of documented cases - it is not so rare. can be very startling.
What are the alternatives to tempered glass? Plain window "float" glass, if broken, forms sharp pieces, which can cut arteries etc. Laminated glass has a layer of plastic between two sheets of glass, and cannot break spontaneously. If impacted it can only crack, and cannot form any fragments at it remains in place, so is much safer. However it is much weaker than tempered glass, and so might crack in normal use. Polycarbonate (plastic) is another alternative, light and safe, but will get scratched in normal use. On balance, I now recommend laminated glass.
In the middle of the night tonight, I was awakened by what I thought was a huge thunder and a lightning stike just outside my house. But it wasn't raining. I soon discovered that my 15 year old shower panel had completely disintegrated. I also was in a state of shock - it really rattled me. I am also greatly relieved by this website.
I was driving along in my 8 year old mini-van yesterday, just minding my own business, not much traffic, going 30-35 mph in the city...when suddenly from out of the blue there came from behind me, a terriffic BOOM! I had brand new tires with the nubs still intact, so I was very confused as to what had just happened, and I was very shaken up. I slowed the car immediately, then turned on a small residential road. I hopped out of my car and to my amazement, found the entire small side rear window completely gone! The middle side window was still breaking as has been described previously. The explosion seemed to be from the inside out. I was very confused. The car driving behind me turned into the street to see if I was okay. I asked him what happened. He reported that as I drove, the glass in the window simply exploded and shot away from the car, just like THAT! He was shaken up too!! Stranger things happen only in the twilight zone!
My shower door exploded this morning for no apparent reason, we had not taken a shower this morning, it was not too hot or too cold. I was in my bathroom getting ready for work and all of the sudden I heard what I thought was a gun shot in my house.
I turned toward the door of the bathroom and that is when I noticed that one of my shower doors had exploded and I was standing on a floor full of glass. The glass shot about 10'out of the shower covering the floor with glass. I was not hurt, thank goodness.
I stood there for a couple of seconds and could hear the "popping" noise. I could not figure out what was causing the "popping" noise until now.
Everyone I talk to has never heard of a glass shower door exploding.
I am glad to know I am not crazy.
I've just found this website and am very glad others have had a strange experience with glass. About 10 minutes ago i was sitting at the dinner table waiting for a programme to download onto my laptop when a flat thick vase, about 5cm away from my laptop, with unlit candles in it split in half exactly, made a loud bang too! I almost jumped out of my skin. I was facing a window and thought someone tried to shoot me but hit the vase, that's how loud it was. So I'm glad to know this kinda thing does happen.
So check this out...
After a hard day's training of capoeira, I set down my glass of Argentinian red wine so that I could admire the Caribbean sunset. When I turned my back, I heard a pop and realized the wine had nearly exploded all over my roommate's laptop and my super cool Comcel cellphone. I stood open-mouthed, my first instinct was to Google this rare event on my roommate's undamaged computer. Ta Da! Here's a whole website with same stories, but no explanations. Peace Out.
Mamita, Santa Marta, Colombia
I also had an exploding shower door yesterday afternoon - a somewhat supernatural experience. No one was in the shower or even in the bathroom at the time it occurred. Bizarre and scary all at once. Is it time to convert to a shower curtain??
Sounded like a gun shot, and to my amazement my patio door was in a thousand pieces. The door is a thermal glass door about 28 yrs old. Only thing that was different on this day was very high humidity, 90%...Would have thought that such an occurence might happen when the glass is newly tempered, but after 28 years you would figure that there would be less pressure in the glass.
Very bizarre.
Jack
9-25-08 1800. After dinner I decided to water plants in my front yard. We have a full-length glass exterior door and an interior steel door, both of which we keep locked. When I opened the steel door, the glass door crumpled and fell into a million pieces at my feet. The doors are in a protected enclosed vestibule and there was no one around. We live in a very quiet neighborhood and our house is only 10 years old. There was no logical reason for this to happen. It is calming to know that similar bizarre occurrences have happened. Thanks.
It was very glad to find this site.
Today at 7:15 pm, the shower room glass exploded spontaneously, and nobody was in the bathroom, all windows were closed, and I could't figure out a rational explanation.
Good to see it's more frequent than I thought.
This explains it all. :)
http://www.oldcastleglass.com/design_criteria_spontaneous.php
I'll add my story - this afternoon we heard a "thud" at our front door. When we checked it out, the glass in our one-year-old exterior storm door was cracked into tiny pieces, over the entire surface. When my husband opened the front door (which is also full glass) the storm door shattered inward. The glass continued to snap, crackle and pop throughout the cleanup.
Now we do live on the main street of a small town and we get our fair share of traffic. The house is only set back about ten feet from the road. There could have been a random piece of gravel or someone's uber-noisy Harley going by, but we never had trouble with our last storm door and we never saw a rock or a point of impact on the glass (before it imploded).
In case anyone Googles this later, it is...well, was, an Anderson 4000 series door...
So relieved to find this site. Early this morning, a little past 6, I was doing my routine dishwashing. I placed a thick whiskey glass on the counter for rinsing and proceeded to do the rest of the dishes. A sudden explosion shattered the glass into smithereen. My first thought was that someone shot into the house and my life was in danger. I ducked, looked around and there was no one! But the panic produced an instant urge to move my bowel. Why did this happen? Can any science explain it? Thanks.
I was holding a glass, drinking from it, when suddenly a big peace of the bottom (and a part of the side of the glass connected to it, sudden got of flew through the kitchen landed on the floor. this with the sound of a little explosion., I threw out the last sip I had in my mouth, scared some of the glass was in there. ... but I discovered it was only one big part that got off. soooooo strange!! My neighbour was standig there watching it happen, couldn't believe his eys: there was only water in the glas before.
All these stories about exploding glass.: maybe the vibration of the earth is higher or something (glass can't take the pressure or whatever) .. like there's more disasters in nature than ever (think of the tsunami and floods and what ever)
or it has to do with energy. // just a few seconds before it happened I had a little 'earthquake' in my vision.. my brains went wierd.. 3 seconds later the glasspart blew off. sooo strange
I still feel funny
I too am glad to find the responses here. At 2:00am last week I was awoken by the sound of shattering glass. I initially thought one of the children had knocked a drinking glass off their night table. This was not the case at I went to the kitchen and found that a glass tumbler that had been left out on the table had basically exploded. There was glass all over the floor and chair next to the table. It appeared as if someone had smashed it with a hammer the pieces were that small.
Submitted from Old Lyme CT, USA
I was at work today and I was up in the stockroom looking for some sign holders. There was a piece of shelf glass for a fixure and I needed to move it to get to the holders, this piece of glas was about 3 ft. x 4 ft. and as soon as I touch it, which wasn't even picking it up , it expolded! Evryone came running over and asked it I was O.K, I was, but when I told them what happened I felt that they didn't believe me. lol But it's true. A few very small shards of glass in my hand and what was pieces like the size of "sparkles". I thought, " do I have some kind of powers today that I don't know of". Weird man, really weird. Why would just me putting my fingers on it would cause it to do that? Some of you have talked about tensoin in the glass, can a person have tension and break a piece of glass just by putting her fingers on it?
This has happened more than once for me. I just put my glasses up in the cupboard from the dishwasher, closed it, and then I heard shattering. Then I opened the cupboard and about 2 glasses were in pieces.
Had a Toyota Rav4 rear window explode as I was driving today. Big bang, and a large oval was gone with the rest of the window totally starred as safety glass will do. No sign of any impact. Second time in 6 months with the last time occurring in our driveway in summer. Very odd.
A couple of weeks ago I'm in the bedroom watching tv at about 2:30 in the morning. All of a sudden the bedroom window explodes in a million pieces. This is not a tempered window, just a regular plate glass window. It was very scary, I just sat there stunned for about 2 minutes. What saved me from getting hurt was the the heavy guage Faux wood blind,that was covering the window. When the window exploded the blind was literly moved outward about 2 feet from the window. I was sitting 6 foot away from the window when it exploded. And the glass was all over the room 10- 12 foot away from the window. I even had glass all over me. And the strangest thing I found when I was cleaning up; was the powdered glass everywhere. The window exploded with such force that alot of the glass was turned to powder. And yet there was no bullet, no rock, no projectile, no nothing. Nelson Patino, from South Florida
omg so 2 hours ago i went to go get a glass cup and poured ice tea in it and i was drinking out of it so i put it down and went to go look something up on my computer and all of a sudden the glass exploed right in front of me i jumped so high i toched my face thinking i had glass stuck in it but thank god i didnt!! the noise was so loud and after i was so scared bc i was home alone and i was just thinking about what if i were drnking out of it at that very moment!
My boyfriend's home has recently had a number of spontaneous glass explosions. The first one occurred while he was sitting at his computer desk with an empty crystal drinking glass on the top of the desk. The glass randomly exploded on its own into small shards; not a single crack, just a sort of explosion into shards. The next event occurred after I gave his mother a beta fish which she kept in a medium sized circular glass bowl. One day, while my boyfriend's grandmother was at home alone, the beta fish bowl spontaneously exploded just like the drinking glass. A similar explosion also happened when his grandmother put a glass casserole bowl on the kitchen counter. The glass bowl exploded into nearly dust sized glass shards. Then, just this week, the beta fish's new glass bowl exploded.
Claire (above me),
I know your problem. You MUST have bought your fish from here http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/150928 watch it all the way through :D
On a serious note. I work in a pub and today with no one around, no extra heat from anything, not just been washed or anything like that, it was totally dry. A glass exploded on a shelf and went all over the floor, although the top of the glass (which was upside down for obvious reasons) was sat there still intact. But the rest was all over the place. Spooky.
Good to hear I am not alone. My shower screen exploded on Sunday, showering the bathroom with glass. I wasn't in there at the time. The force of the dropping glass cracked the tray, a shard embedding itself within it. Good job I wear protective body armor and heavy boots when I shower. I called the shop and they said it has happened 3 or 4 times. I asked why it could happen and he said a change in temperature. What, like having a hot shower on a cold day? Good job that never happens. They are replacing it, but I don't want it replaced. Who would. I am seeing if I can sue, but as there are so many instances listed here, it seems to be an accepted part of owning anything made of glass. Again, good job that only a very small percentage of us fit into that category. I didn't ask why they continue to sell them with a known fault as dramatic and dangerous as this. I assume the answer would have been people buy them, so we sell them. Supply and demand. I suppose demanding that you are not covered in glass when you have a shower is to much to ask for.
I am happy so many people were in other rooms when this happened. I think I will read more about it and see what can be done. Shower curtains. That's the way forward. If it wasn't for glass, it would be curtains for all of us. Though if the glass carries on shattering, it may well be curtains for all of us anyway.
This same event happened yesterday at the nighttime.
A glass shelf shattered in a TWENTY-FIVE FOOT radius.
It left some smoke and it continued to shatter into smaller pieces for another hour or so. What's up with this?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
It happened last night for the 2nd time on a double-pained window.
The first was a Sears sliding window in the basement- just shattered as I sat 5 feet away; last night the outside pane of an Anderson circle-top above my kitchen sink shattered without provocation.
Sears replaced at no charge for parts but $100 for labor. Anderson has a 20 year warranty, so I'll contact them today to see how stromgly they stand behind their products.
Same story here- exploding glass, quick action to google. Mine was a large piece of tempered glass (60" by 22") intended for my patio door refinishing project. Went to pick it up and, bang! it "exploded" into a gazillion pieces. Like everyone else Im sure, I too stood there there in a combination of amazement, disbelief and confusion for at least 5 minutes. Now Im getting ready for "that conversation" with the glass company on Monday morning, that I purchased it from last week.
Just the other morning at around 4am our house woke to a very loud shattering and a thump noise. I didn't know what had happened, thinking maybe some one threw a brick through the window(very unlikely in our area)I quickly ran down stars to where in heard the noise. A huge side of my mum's frame less shower screen, which is like 10mm thick had just randomly come off and was all over the floor. It was all full projectile across the bathroom and into the walk in robe. If the door from the robe to my mums room was open she would have been covered in shards of glass. The rest of the screen was still standing but you could see and hear glass cracking in it. The other screen next to it was fine. We have only had them in just over a year and have others in the house. To closer notice we found glass was embedded on the ceiling and into the floor boards, so we thought it could have exploded. Good to know this was not just a freak accident and that the rest of the people had had the same thing. Insurance is kicking up but they paid and getting a new one installed:)
Sam
(Victoria - Australia)
This morning, I came down to open the door for a visitor. then i noticed that the piece of glass on the door wasn't see through. I looked at it closely and noticed, while shuddering, that the cracks weren't even outside. IT WAS FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE GLASS! i was so freaked out i'm glad i found this site so that it wasn't the cause of the cleaning material i've been using. This has only happened to one of the 8 panes in the house. SACRY!!
Guys,
I work in the glass industry and there is a scenario (which is extremely rare) that is explained here:
A nickel sulfide inclusion, (also abbreviated to NiS), occurs during the process of manufacturing float glass (normal window glass).
Occurrence
In a batch of glass, contaminants that contain nickel might be present, (e.g. stainless steel.) These can combine with sulfur to form nickel sulfide inclusions. Furnaces produce hundreds of tons of glass every day, so it is difficult to completely eliminate any contaminants. This causes a problem later in the manufacturing process.[1]
The process of tempering float glass can cause a NiS to change from its normal state (known as a low-temperature structure) to a different high-temperature, crystalline structure. When the glass is cooled quickly (as part of the process) the NiS particle is unable to change back to its original form. Over a certain period of time NiS will slowly convert to the original low temperature structure. This means the NiS increases in size, and the mechanical stresses caused by this cause the tempered pane to shatter, for no apparent reason (hence spontaneous glass breakage).[1]
In Layman's Terms,
There are many raw materials that go into the production of glass that consist of numerous molecular compounds. Sometimes there are contaminants that mix and are not filtered out of the molten glass and when cooled get trapped inside of the sheet of glass. When the glass is installed on your house or apartment or speaker box, the temperature on 1 side is significantly warmer than on the other side. For instance, on a cold winter day it can reach below freezing outside and inside your house it is 72 degrees. This causes the nickel sulfide to react to the extreme temperatures and it expands at a rate the glass cannot handle and it shatters.
This is not the only scenario, in fact there are more than 50 inclusions known to cause glass to have a spontaneous shatter.
My dishwasher SIEMENS quite unbelievable. We place wine glasses with stems in it , no problem, but the glass tumblers of all shapes and sizes fracture and break without even turning the dishwasher on. Are we jinxed or is there a secret ghost inside the thing ??? Surely a scientific answer to this phenominon ??
I was sitting in the kitchen talking to my dad who was sitting in a different room, watching a movie. While trying to get my laptop to work, I heard the wine glass he was holding explode.. and sure enough it was all over him. I thought he dropped it, but apparently it exploded right in his hand. He claimed there was nothing left in it or anything.
So strange.
Last night 1-27-09, I was sitting at my patio ouside on the back porch. All of a sudden,there was a loud boom. I thought someone threw a firecracker into my back yard. Then I realized my 3-5 by 9.5 glass table exploded. It just imploded, however, there was glass everywhere. My wife thought it was one of our cats,or that I put something down on the table too hard. I told her. This table just exploded. I was shook up. I was fortunate glass did not get in my face. I'm still looking for a cause.
Last night 01/02/2009 my partner and i woke up at 3:00am startled to the noise of an explosion and running water. I thought our roof had collapsed it was that loud, but then found that my fish bowl had exploded.
It was like it had blown out as only one side of the bowl broke!The other hald was still sitting in the same spot on the shelf with nothing around it. We were sooo freaked out by this and couldnt understand why this would happen! I'm glad that we're not the only ones!
Luckily my gold fish survived and is now in a coke bottle until i find a new bowl today!
Our seven year old glass topped round patio table exploded into a million pieces today (5 November 2009). Nothing had hit or fallen onto the glass table top nor had it appeared damaged or cracked before the explosion. We first thought the cause was heat expansion from the sun, on what is a very hot day (37 degrees centigrade). However, the "nickel sulphide" explanation above by Mr Spencer seems a more likely cause.
I have a nearly new set of bathroom scales the type that are all glass. I thought they looked as though they could do with a wipe over as they where a bit sticky I picked them up and proceded to wipe them with a damp cloth and a bit of detergent, over the bathroom sink. as I did so there was a loud crack and the whole glass panel disintegrated in my hands and filled the sink with thousands of pieces of glass also showering glass all over the bathroom floor. I was stunned
Hi there, i have just returned from a 1 night stay at the holiday inn surfers paradise last night. at 4.30am this morning i was awoken by an explosion. i got up to investigate too discover the shower screen in the bathroom had literally for no reason exploded sending glass out into the hallway. it continued to break up for the following 15 minutes we remained in the room until we were moved. it was quiet amazing.
At 01:00hrs this morning I heard a bang downstairs and went to investigate. I found that one of our glass 'placemats' in the kitchen had exploded. It was about 20cm across and 2cm thick, was not near anything which could have affected it and nothing had fallen onto it. It had exploded under it's own steam sending pieces of glass about five feet away at their furthest. The pieces continued to crack and split for about two or three minutes afterwards. There were no environmental factors to consider ie Heat, Cold, Humidity etc - it just semed like it generated its own explosive force and blew apart. Very weird! I like the explanation noted previously that nickel (or whatever it was) impurities in the manufacturing stage can lead to failure years later. It's better than my partner thinking it was a poltergeist :)
I had the same experience the author of this blog had. Just an hour ago a glass door to the TV box shattered.
We have 29 inch CRT ( old TV non LCD ) TV which is placed in a wooden box/stand with glass door in front.
A couple of hours ago we switched of our TV and went to sleep. around 45 minutes latter we heard some sound and rushed to living room from bed room to find the glass door shattered.
I would like to explain the scene. There are pieces of glass only in the plane of the glass door, i.e pieces of glass are on left right and below the door position but non in front. On observation we think the glass pieces have spread in the same plane as door.
The glass pieces continues to pop and break into still smaller pieces.
I tried to record in my cam, but will check it out in the morning.
Glass door normal as we were watching TV till last one hour.
The Initiating first crack must have lead to the shatter.
But what made the first crack is the Question.
-Satya
A glass exploded in my kitchen today for no apparent reason - heavy base, fairly think sides - nothing hit it, nothing near it. No extreme temperatures, no vibrations.
This thread is really old, 2003 January!!!
I'm really conviced about the manufacturing defects that may cause tempered glass to explode, no mystery at all.
But the non-tempered glass that exploded inside the kitchen cabinets, as happened to many people related above, and to me just some minutes ago is still a mystery for me.
120 responses to exploding glass and no good reason for that astonishing situation.... strange...
I found a site on physics about exploding glass, but toughened glass only, it's not my case. You may check if you want:
http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-172300.html
I'll keep looking for an answer. Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences.
My daughter and I were staying at a hotel in Nottingham. We were getting ready to go out for dinner, we had both had showers,I was sitting at the dressing table, she was doing her make-up in the bathroom, when suddenly there was a huge explosion and the sound of shattering glass. She came running out of the bathroom, we then looked in to find one of the glass shower screens had shattered! It was a scarey experience, with no explanation! So pleased to have found this website, now we know we are not alone. We were moved to one of their best rooms, so it was not all bad.
27-4-09 Gill.
So glad I found this posting. Just 3 days ago my shower door mysteriously "imploded" for no apparent reason. I thank the Lord I was not in the vicinity (or worse, IN THE SHOWER!!!) at the time. It made a terrible noise. By the time I made it up the steps to the bathroom, the entire panel was in two piles - one inside the shower, the other right outside the shower. As others have mentioned, the "popping" sound continued for several minutes. It was really bizarre and scary. Now I'm wondering whether to replace the door or just go the safer route of the shower curtain??????
Hi,
Count me in this select group.
Me and my girlfriend were in the living room watching tv when we heard an almighty explosion sound in the kitchen.
We ran out to find glass everywhere and the remains of one of our glasses still on the shelf with the others.
It was just a pile of small pieces of glass where the glass had been and it had spewed glass all over the kitchen like it had been hit with a bullet or something.
In fact - i was so desperate to try and work out how this could have happened - i checked all the windows thinking a stray air rifle bullet or sometging had been shot in our direction - but it was the middle of the night and everything was secure.
I love a mystery and anything out of the ordinary - but i would love to know how this could happen?
All the best - from the UK - mark.
I had The same thing happen,except it was a dish.
I walked into the kitchen one evening and opened the cupboard to grab a dish.
As I turned to my right to turn towards the tap with the dish in front of me in my hands,It exploded.
The pieces were really, really small, in a sort of round but squiggly shape. It almost look like some sort of energy or frequency had shattered the dish. Before that day I had never seen any glass or dish shatter into so many pieces or into the shaps I saw that day.
I immediately called my roomates at the time to look at what happened.None of us could explain it.
So know I stare at objects wondering if I can move them...lol
Its good to see that others had the same thing happen, at least we all know were not nuts! now or just evil!
Cheers
Well... I am glad I found this website.
I thought I was going nuts when my 16 year old mirrored shower door just shattered into a million pieces a few hours ago.
Now I know other people have experience this.
Last night my elderly mother and I were watching television when, yes, we heard an incredible noise (at first I didn't know where it was coming from). I got up to find that the glass sliding door leading into the atrium had exploded. As many others on this site have remarked, it was unnerving. Living in crime-ridden San Bernardino, one's first thought is that somebody had fired a gun at it (a couple of years ago I had someone throw a can of root beer through my picture window) but when I ran outside nobody could be seen and it would have been next-to-impossible for anyone to have fired into the atrium anyway. The apartment is nearly forty years old and I imagine the door is as old; so, I guess its time had just come. I'm also glad to read that others have experienced this so now I can rule out what was going to be my next theory: the possibility of a poltergeist!
I am glad I found this website. Just a few hours ago (after 10 pm) I was working on the computer and was sitting in front of a 3 pane patio door when suddenly I heard a loud noise like an explosion or gun shot and 1 large hole appeared in the middle of my patio door and the whole middle pane began cracking and forming little pieces and falling out. Of course by then I am halfway down the hallway and screaming my head off! My first thought was that a stray (or not!)bullet had gone through the glass. (We live out in the country.) I really don't have a good explanation for what caused it. My husband and I had been mowing and weed eating earlier in the day but were several feet away from the patio door. The only other thing I noticed different today was bombers flying over 2 or 3 times. They sounded like angry bumble bees. We also live in tornado alley and it is very humid today. We also live close to the New Madrid fault. Maybe we are going to have an earth quake along that fault.(Or had one.) According to some experts, we are overdue for a major one. I guess anything is better than thinking someone is shooting at you! lol (by the way, the glass panes were very thick and the doors used to be in a business and were heavy duty.)
Anyway, it is good to know I am not alone in this experience. Thanks to everyone who shared.
I was shocked out of a deep sleep with at first a loud noise and then the clinking of pottery collapsing in pieces on top of a chest of drawers. Nothing was close to or could have fallen on the pottery which had sat in the same spot of 2 years. I am baffled.
Anyone had an exploding vase recently?
I just put about 20cm of water into a 60cm tubular glass vase and then some sunflowers - and 15mns later there was an almight crash and when I ran into the room the vase was standing in exactly the same position - but with a huge hole in the bottom half of the vase - as if someone had punched a circle of glass out of it.
The glass that had blown out was lying in about 3 bits on the floor with several really, really sharp slivers.
The base and the bottom of the vase were cracked but the rest of it's in tact.
Terrifying - dangerous - inexplicable.
05/19/2009
I was sitting at my son's computer desk. A heavy glass tumber was sitting about 4 inches from my left hand and the glass had been sitting there empty and untouched for at least a half hour. My son and his friend were playing video games about 4 feet away from me. I heard what sounded like a gunshot! The glass tumber had exploded. Even though this was a very heavy glass, there was not a piece to be found more than the size of a pencil eraser. I was stunned! The boys were stunned! I have several small cuts to my left arm and I feel like I have been sprayed with fiberglass. Glass pieces were found several feet away. I am just thankful that I had not turned toward my son to ask another question! I am legally blind in one eye.....I can't imagine losing vision in the only eye I can use. I honestly didn't know what to think. There was no apparent reason for the glass to explode. Normal temperature, no windows in the room (basement bedroom), the door was open, so there wasn't a pressure issue. I didn't feel any static shock. You can bet I said a few Hail Mary's.......
Glad to know that this appears to be somewhat common and I don't have a poltergeist. But I don't think I want to drink out of glass anymore. Somehow my merlot seems less appealing in Tupperware.
Been racking my brain all day to figure out what happened. Last night 2am water glass by my bed. Explosion, glass everywhere and me freaked out. Even as I was picking up the thousands of pieces I could here the larger, quarter sized pieces, continue to shatter. Most bizzare thing I have ever encountered.
I was walking down the passage when my hall table (which is just a large piece of toughened glass resting on pillars), exploded with such force that splinters of glass were embedded into the aluminium window frame. large pieces of glass flew across the room before shattering into many small pieces. Some of the small pieces were also embedded in the wall. I was just thankfull that I wasn't any closer. I thought I had been shot!!
A large pyrex glass bowl shattered as I was removing it from the kitchen cabinet. I couldn't believe it! Glass exploded, shattered all over! Weired experience! There was no extreme temperature to cause this and it was a Pyrex bowl that can be heated!
I have no idea what happened!
anyone?
Okay I figured it out! The glass Pyrex bowl was stored in the cabinet inside a large Mikasa Salad bowl and with a smaller Pyrex bowl on top. When I stored it away I do recall hearing a sound. Well, it must have cracked when I put it away and when I lifted it up ~ it shattered!
I figured this out because I found a sliver of glass inside the Mikasa salad bowel - I won't store glass on top of glass anymore!
Lesson Learned!
A GLASS TUMBLER (MADE FROM WARTIME GLASS) THAT EXPLODED FOR NO
APPARENT REASON.
On Sunday 17 May 2009 a 60 odd year old glass
tumbler exploded: this was wartime glass: you
could drop it, add boiling water or cold water
and it survived it all. It was on a stainless
steel draining board joined to copper water
pipes via the taps. It started off resting on
the draining board approximately half full of
water, then a boiled egg and a teaspoon were
placed into it and then about 5 minutes later
the egg was removed. A couple of minutes later
a short-bladed, wooden handled knife was placed
into the water. As the knife blade touched the
water, the glass exploded - violently - glass
went everywhere.
my shower door exploded while i was taking a shower the fragment lacerated my hand and foot im wondering if this can be tookin in to legal matters i was not abusing the door and we did not shock the glass with hot and cold water please some one respond back i suffer from blood clauts and take koomaden to thin my blood this accident could have killed me.
I also would really like to know why this happens and if there's any way to prevent it...I bought a set of four glasses from a brewery in Oregon a few years ago, which I use frequently. They are heavy pint glasses, "dishwasher safe." About a year and a half ago, I emptied the dishwasher and then went upstairs to bed. About an hour later, I heard a sharp crack like something falling off a shelf - I went downstairs but didn't see anything. The next morning when I opened the cupboard, I found the source of the noise - one of the pint glasses had broken in half vertically. I assumed it was a fluke thing, but this morning I took another one of the glasses out of the dishwasher and put it away, then took it out of the cabinet a few hours later, filled it with ice cubes, and then club soda. As I finished filling the glass, the same thing happened - it broke completely in half vertically. I still had one half standing on the counter; the other fell and shattered. Luckily I wasn't holding it at the time.
I assume that there is some sort of flaw in the glass that is perhaps exacerbated by the heat of the dishwasher's drying cycle - it can't be just a coincidence that both broke shortly after having been removed from it - but I would really like to know for sure. There were no visible flaws in the glass that I could see. I emailed the brewery to see if they have had any other reports of problems, but haven't heard back yet.
I'm glad to see I'm not just crazy! I and my 5 kids were sound asleep last night. A huge noise woke me up at 4:30 am. I jumped up to see what had happened. As I walked through my house I could hear a popping sound. It reminded me of rice krispys poppin'. I turned on the dinning room light and found glass everywhere. And I mean everywhere! First thought was the light cover. All was good when I looked at the light. I had no idea where it came from. Then I noticed on the kitchen counter my bananas were no longer in a bowl. The fuit bowl was very thick and heavy. Now it was shattered all over the counter and floors. I was in total shock! The bowl was only a few years old, never cracked and not exposed to heat or cold or anything that would make it shatter. It looked like some one had hit it with a hot laser or something. I took some pix of it before I cleaned it up. I also woke my 12yr old up because I knew know one would believe me. I'm still in shock!
I join the neverending list of people who have experienced this strange phenomenon!! If it didn't happen to me I would find it rather hard to believe. I was woken around 11pm last night, with a loud explosive, crackling sound. I was startled to discover a glass tumbler that was a quarter full of water had shattered into hundreds of pieces. Half of the base was still intake on my beside table, but had a crazed appearance. I spent the next hour vacuuming and picking up pieces of glass that had been thrown around the area. Luckily none landed in my bed. The next day, I was reminded of the incident as I placed my foot on the ground and was greeted by a piece of glass. Ouch! Brisbane, Australia
I experienced something similar yesterday. I had just gotten home from church & had not been home for even ten minutes when I heard the alarm on my 2002 Pontiac Montana Minivan sounding off, Well I went outside to check it out & low & behold My Drivers side sliding door window was shattered in a thousand pieces & all over the ground. I looked all over for a rock or bullet shell or anything & could find no evidence for the glass breaking. I'm glad I did a search on the web to find this site as I'm not alone in this sort of thing.
Had similar experience yesterday. The drivers side sliding door window shattered in a thousand pieces with no evidence of an external force. Im glad I found this site to know that im not alone in this.
Has anyone ever had any thoughts about the possible connection of spontaneous glass breakage with ghosts or spirits? Not trying to be funny. Our house has a lengthy history of haunting, much of it I have witnessed firsthand. I didn't use to believe in such things, but let me tell you, I do know. Anyway, a wine glass exploded for no reason yesterday and I can't help but think that this is just another event perpetrated by our spiritual visitors. There have been many.
While staying at a Boston hotel, we were awakened at 4:39 AM by the explosion of the glass top on a wooden table. There was nothing on the table but my wife's Blacberry and her cell phone. Both were charging. Thousands of pieces of glass were thrown from the table. It continued to crackle and break for about 1/2 hour.
Could this be caused by RF waves from the electronic devices ?
Wonderful to see this site ... as I'd be suffering mild form post-traumatic distress (!) ever since this past Saturday, when I was concocting a vinagrette in a large water tumbler. I had been using a fork to stir, and while I was holdign the glass, there was a loud pop and the thing exploded. While I acknowlege that the stirring probably initiated the event, the glass actually exploded with shards (and vinagrette) in every direction for yards. Extremely weird. And what's worse, the glass landed on the rest of the dinner that was laid out.
My shower door shattered into tiny pieces last night. I tought the shower head was leaking water, but found out it wasn't, it was the sound of the glass continuing to break. It was really weird because no one was even close to the bathroom when it broke. If anyone was in the bathroom when it broke, they would have been hurt. I'm thinking of going back to shower curtains
Last night, my husband and I had just finished eating on glass placemats. We finished eating and I was just about to wipe down the placemat when it just exploded in my face! Luckily I was not hurt but the experience really freaked me out because nothing had touched the placemat and nor had we been eating anything particularly hot to cause any pressure to the glass. There was a lot of crackling noise afterwards as I noticed that the small pieces of glass were continiuing to break further.I am relieved to see that I am not the only one to have experienced something like this!
I am thinking of changing to non-glass placemats!
One of my glass shower doors exploded last night at 11pm.
We were both in bed at the time and the shower hadn't been used since the morning. The door hasn't been hit on the edge or anything and was working fine.
Glass went everywhere and some bits were even embedded in the wallpaper. I managed to get a replacement door, which will be OK as a temporary measure, but for safety reasons I'm considering rplacing the entire enclosure now. If anyone had been in the shower at the time, they would have suffered multiple cuts and a severe fright.
The shower enclosure was an all glass double door quadrant type bought from B&Q 5 years ago, so be warned!
i had the same experience happen to me today. i was sitting in my living room enjoying my usual cup of coffee when i heard a shattering noise in the kitchen. i walked in to find that a glass i had sitting on the kitchen counter for a day or 2 just completely blew up. the bottom of the glass was fractured all the way through the glass and the pieces were in there original position while the top of the glass was not fractured but had just exploded in all directions away from where the glass originally stood. i have no idea how this happened. kind of freaky i must say myself. any ideas?
My wife and I recently received a set of Pyrex baking dishes as a wedding gift, I had it sitting on the counter last night with another dish in it, neither of them were hot. When I woke up this morning, the bottom dish had shattered and was ALL over the kitchen, it looked like it had exploded, but what is weirding me out is that neither of the dishes were hot, so it shouldnt have been thermal shock. Anyone have any experiences with this?
Ahhh i'm far from the only one then! 2 days ago i was lay on my sofa, i nodded off and was woken to the pint glass that was on the floor down the side of the sofa exploding! That soon woke me up but the glass was everywhere, hit my face, all in my hair and on the arm of the sofa aswell as the floor... I know the glass was empty when i had put it down and it really freaked me out... I started thinking i have a ghost as other things have happened but this really scared me as it could've hurt me or my little boy if he was here... Does anyone know what causes this cause i dont like to think i'm not alone in this house lol!
Just like the other people that have been posting here I just experienced this myself. It's only 10-15 minutes ago my Table suddenly exploded- No pressure or anything. All I heard was a really loud Crash sound and I rushed to my living-room only to find a million shards everywhere from my Glass Table.
This is somewhat freaky as I cannot find any explanations...
Hi again fellow victems - our experience was exactly like nigels earlier post above and i have already left my original post somewhere earlier in this alarmingly long thread!
What the helll is going on. I never expected so many comments from all of you and there still coming! If only a small percentage of people suffering this phenomenon find this thread then that is a lot of problems in this world to do with GLASS.
I hope this is a once in a lifetime type of experience for us because if it happends to me or my girlfriend again we are going to get very paranoid around the material.
Is there any more serious overtones to this problem - what about aircraft windows and other critically important uses of glass. Is this a reason behind any seemingly unkown accidents etc?
Not trying to worry anyone etc but some of the comments have been about car windows and all types of glass from tempered and safety glass to normal.
My husand is a handiman and he purchased a glass door for a client. He laid it on the center of the livingroom floor to keep it safe over the weekend. IT EXPLODED into into glass shards all over the living room. Why? Nothing hit it, no one was in there, nothing dropped. It has been "crackling" for a long time. Very freaky.
DRINKING GLASS
I walked into a room and the conversation stopped when I walked in.
I felt odd as I figured they were talking about me.
I started looking at a drinking glass sitting on a glass table that another person in the room was drinking.
just at the moment that I was staring at it, the glass exploded.
Pretty cool.
Some thing kinda like that happened to me.. I was in my living room watching tv, then all of a sudden i heard a smashing sound, so i went in to the kitchen and there was a glass that had smashed and all the broken bits of glass that had come off it was inside the bottom of the glass, (not 1 tiny bit on the floor) it was all neat and tidy .. STRANGE...
I ate a warm porridge from a thick glass bowl at about 6:30am. Then I went back to bed. I woke up at about 7am to the sound of something being smashed off the wall and broken. I was so scared - I thought there is someone in the kitchen. I went to see what was it. The bottom of my glass bowl was still sitting on the table, and all kitchen was covered in small pieces of glass and porridge. That meant that the bowl has exploded! I was stricken. After a while I took pictures of it all. I was scared to touch all that for 2 days. My first thought was that the Chinese bowl had something in it to explode intentionally, sort of to decrease the population of the neighboring country.
- Astana, Kazakhstan
I was putting away dishes into the dishwasher and cleaning the glass serving covers on top of my countertop when I sprayed cleaner on one glass cover, attempted to pick it up in order to wipe underneath it, and had it implode into a thousand pieces. Thank God I had picked it up with a paper towel in my hand as I could have had my hand cut to shredds. The glass continued to pop like popcorn as I watched and listened to it for the next minute or two.
WoW. I thought I was alone too. One evening my best friends boyfriend and I were talking in the living room. No one else was home we were both missing her because she was in boot camp, and we heard this loud bang I thought someone had thrown a brick through the window. We both ran to check it out and saw the glass bowl containing coleslaw had exploded and the glass was still sizzling for a while after, like rice krispies only louder that is the only way I can describe it. I really began to think the house was haunted.
My brothers were bouncing a pebble back and forth across a roof of a car when one of them missed the pebble and it hit the window of the neighboring car. The pebble was VERY tiny and the window EXPLODED in a million little pieces, needless to say, they trucked outta there fast!
My brother and his wife had the same experience yesterday morning. They got up as normal and went to the bathroom to find their shower screen had exploded during the night, although they had not heard anything (they had had a drink the night before though so probably slept soundly) There were small chunks of glass all over the room. Thank God they were not in the bathroom at the time. I dread to think what could have happened. It did mark their bath though. I'm so glad to have found this site as it makes a lot of sense of what happened and if it happens to me at least I will know what it is.
Same thing just happened to me. Got woken by a loud explosion. Initially thought it was a burglar.
The glass shower door had spontaneously exploded! It's in a million pieces although thankfully, it hasn't fallen out of the frame yet. It's been making a loud crackling sort of noise for the last four hours though.
Glad to have found this site as it's such a weird thing to happen.
MY TABLE JUST EXPLODED!!!!!!!!!
I think I am also now having a heart attack...
I was removing an unframed glass shower door a couple of months ago. I had it completely out and was moving it to lean it up against a wall when it suddenly just exploded in my hands. I definitely DID NOT hit anything with it. It just spontaneously exploded. It sounded like a gun going off. It completely stunned me and my helper. It was brand new and the original installer said that what I was saying was impossible.Well I know better and obviously so do a lot of other people! And like so many others, the glass continued to crackle long after it shattered. I was slightly injured, but fortunately the glass seemed to explode away from me. If it hadn't, I probably would have been cut to ribbons. Be warned.
I would like to have a wall of windows explode/shatter simultaneously for a video. Does anyone have an idea how to do this... without using explosives that might hurt the architecture?
Any leads appreciated!
I know a little about glass but am not expert. I can say this 'toughened glass is tempered glass. It is tough and when it breaks will separate into cube like pieces. Quite different from glass that will splinter into large pieces and long knife-like shards.
I can not address all of the comments but:
Shane Curcuru; ur glasses are not toughened and the just simply broke, it has nothing to do with the above topic.
Lavena; ur backing dish is tempered it either got too hot in one spot (from what was in it?)or cooled too rapidly (from setting it on a cool surface) in one spot. The difference is contraction caused it to 'pop'.
Tog; ur glass on the glass table again is not tempered and it is the same as Shane's story.
Bobsclock; this has happened to me also. The weight of the bowls on top put enough pressure to break it. Another thing that can happen it to take a hot glass out of the dishwasher and stack a cold one inside. If the pressure is not too great, as it cools, they can become stuck together. If the pressure is stronger, one can break.
Tempered glass (also known as toughened glass)is one of two kinds of safety glass regularly used in applications in which standard glass could pose a potential danger. It is four to five times stronger than standard glass and does not break into sharp shards when it fails.
The brittle nature of tempered glass causes it to shatter into small oval-shaped pebbles when broken. This eliminates the danger of sharp edges. Due to this property, along with its strength, tempered glass is often referred to as safety glass.
The thermal process that cures tempered glass also makes it heat resistant. Tempered glass is used to make the carafes in automatic coffee makers and the windows in ovens. Computer screens, skylights, door windows, tub enclosures and shower doors are more examples of places you will find tempered glass. Building codes also require the windows of many public structures to be made of tempered glass.
Tempered glass breaks in a unique way. If any part of the glass receives an extreme impact, the entire panel shatters at once. This distinguishes it from normal glass, which might experience a small crack or localized breakage from an isolated impact. However, Tempered glass also has a tendancy to break long after the event that caused the unit to completely shatter. Stresses continue to manipulate the point of impact until the glass erupts, triggering breakage of the entire panel.
Damage to the glass will eventually result in the glass shattering into thumbnail-sized pieces. The glass is most susceptible to breakage due to damage to the edge of the glass where the tensile stress is the greatest, but shattering can also occur in the event of a hard impact in the middle of the glass pane or if the impact is concentrated (for example, striking the glass with a point). Using toughened glass can pose a security risk in some situations because of the tendency of the glass to shatter completely upon hard impact rather than leaving shards in the window frame.
It is important to note that while the strength of the glass does not change the deflection, being stronger means that it can deflect more before breaking.
Suddenly at 10:30 PM with no one near the bathroom a glass shower door "exploded" with the sound of a shot gun. It wasn't cold or hot and we hadn't used the shower in at least a week. The glass was at least 20 years old and never was a problem. The glass completely covered the floor and was still popping and jumping long after. It really was strange.
about a week ago i was recounting an incident while watching a poltergeist show on tv with by son. i told him about a strange incident that had happened at approximately the same hour that my uncle died about 20 years ago. back then, a thick glass almost like a beer mug exploded spontaneously in our kitchen cabinet. it was not struck by anything else and being so thick it was strange that it broke into powder like fragments. it wasn't hot or cold it was in the low 70s. i swear, after i told my son that story about 2 hours later a glass that was in my new home, in my new kitchen exploded! it too was in tiny fragments but this time the stem was still intact and standing right where it had been all along! on a shelf out of the way and again nothing struck it and weather was high 60s! i started calling my relatives to see if everyone was ok! my son refuses to be home alone now!
My husband and I had just finished some shrimp cocktail and we both got up from the kitchen counter where we sitting when out of nowhere, the small glass bowl containing the cocktail sauce exploded into dozens of tiny pieces. The pieces covered in cocktail sauce remained in close proximity to the spot where the bowl was sitting on the granite counter and the glass not in contact with the sauce flew as far away as eight feet. Perhaps it was caused by some type of reaction to the contents but
Well I just figured I would have a glass of milk I picked up my normal glass its one of those thin Carling pint glasses not a second after picking it up it just exploded in my hand I did not even put pressure on it cut my hand up big time
Today i had a very unexplicable experience similar to yours. I was washing dishes just like I always do. When i started rinsing one of the glass cups which it wasnt thin at all, it exploded in my hand. Luckily it didn't cut my hand. But was in shock like for a minute. It looked like ice broken in thousands of pieces.
Today I had a strange experience. I was sat at home alone when I heard the sound of breaking glass close to me. I went to where I had heard it, near a bookcase, and found on the floor shards of glass, but also -- unexplainably -- shards on one of the shelves, around seven feet up. A piece of glass had been on that shelf and appears to have spontaneously shattered. It was a small piece of glass, round, around the size of a hand, that was part of a halogen reading lamp. On the shelf, the shards were spread apart by some centimetres. The glass was thin, but I doubt it was reinforced. I just can't explain how some of it was on the shelf, seven feet up, and some was on the floor.
I woke up this morning after a rather strange nightmare involving crash landing helicopters and sharks eating children (??!!) and as I was lying there contemplating how strange all that was the empty pint glass on my bedside table exploded with the loudest bang!! I wasn't touching it and hadn't since I'd drunk it before fallen asleep the night before. I think I screamed and could only sit up and stare at it for a few minutes, trying to work out if that had really just happened or was I still asleep?! It's still creeping me out a little. What a way to wake up! The table top sits higher than my bed too, so the glass went all over my bed, floor, pillow and in my hair. Fortunately I was lying facing the other way at the time as I have no doubt I would've had a face full of glass!
I was over my mother in laws house tonight, and I had a glass of red wine, it was about 1/2 full and sitting on a table. There were a few people in the room just talking and watching TV, all of the sudden the wine glass just made a loud pop and the bottom burst out of it and the wine shot out all over the place! It was eerie. This was the same glass I used every time I was over their home, I think they have had it about 2 years. It was about 70 degrees inside and 40 degrees outside in the oxford region of Maine. Strangely enough the only other post I saw on here with someone stating they were from ME, was also a wine glass with red wine with a 40 degree outside temperature. It freaked me out.
I was driving my father-in-law's 2001 Montana minivan, like Glenn, above, when I heard an explosion. I was just pulling in my driveway. I ducked, thinking it was a bullet, but I live in Canada where these things are rare. It turns out the rear door glass had exploded, outwards, and the shattered glass had turned black in the process. Strange but true.
Glass Vessel Sink Explosion
I was awakened by a huge explosion that scared the life out of me. I put on the lights and saw glass all over my ensuite. One of my glass vessel sinks had exploded in the middle of the night. There was glass everywhere. Now I am fighting with the manufacturer to get compensation, they indicate that their sinks are CSA (Canada Safety Assoc)approved and seem unwilling to do anything. What if someone was seriously injured?? I am scared to use my other glass sinks because of this.
... sleeping at ~4:30am and was awakened by a loud complex shattering sound... The glass of a shower door had spontaneously shattered. This door has been present in the house for decades. We don't really even use that bathroom much anymore. The door is under no pressure; it is in an aluminum frame with rubber corners. It likely hasn't been touched for a week or more. The window of the bathroom was closed... no breezes... it's about 47 degrees outside but about 58 in the house. 15 minutes later and it's still crackling. Occasionally I can hear a piece 'pop'out and land on the floor or hit the toilet bowl beside the tub. I'll have to clean it up tomorrow I guess. The thing about it is that I watched a horror flick tonight and now this. haha.. It is an experience I can only describe as "Creepy as all F*
I was making turkey soup from the carcass of my delicious Thanksgiving Dinner. The broth and carcass had been simmering on my stove overnight, and all the next day. I had skimmed the fat, removed the bones/crud, put new turkey into it, and was raising it to a boil to put the pasta in. I was in the living room when we heard a big explosion. The glass on the top of my beloved Belguique cookware had exploded! EVERYWHERE! The handle and glass had fallen in, and it took more than 1/2 hour of vacuuming to try and get it all. Damn! No turkey soup! I'm afraid to use the rest, now! I don't know what to do...the only manufacturer of Belgique is Macy's, and their website is less than helpful.
We'll see what happens at the store!
I was watching the tv with my girlfriend when we heard a quiet cracking noise which we just dismissed at the time then we heard it again so my girlfirend looked at our bedside table and picked up her glass of water when the bott half of the glass completely seperated itself from the top half that was still in her hand! There were no cracks in the glass previously and it's not very old! We live in the uk so the temperature was the sane it normally is about 25 degrees so I don't think it's related to heat but it was absolutely paranormal to see it happen when I put the top half on the coffee table it continued to crack and nearly exactly broke again in half? We will look at it again in the morning! Is there a scientific explanation for this because we are quite spooke out! :/
We were out with a group of women with special needs for lunch the other day. we were all sitting at the table waiting to order, The owner brought out glasses and bottles of water. All of a sudden without warning one of the glasses exploded and glass went everywhere. We were lucky no one got hurt. We all immediately looked up but nothing fell , the glass just exploded. It was the weirdest thing. I did, a few years ago, have a glass shelf in the fridge just shatter when I opened the fridge one day and it just kept shattering for ages. I'd love to know what causes this.
About 6 months ago i installed a new bathroom into my house. Part of this refurbishment involved a brand new glass shower screen. At around 3am this morning i was woken by a HUGE bang and a lot of noise. I thought the roof had collapsed on the house or something. On going to the bathroom the screen had exploded into millions of bits. Bits had flown right across the room and has gotten everywhere, i still have not cleaned it up. I also noticed that my heater in the bedroom would not work. I love alone and to say i was scared would be an understatement. Just do not understand how this can happen, the screen has stood for months and been perfectly fine.
I am also glad I found this site.. ! I was simply in the living room watching TV a little big ago when I heard glass breaking in the kitchen. Before anything, I put the dogs up so they wouldn't go in there, thinking it was a glass that had been sitting too close to the edge of the counter, and maybe some wrapping paper or something near it had fallen on it knocking it on the floor. When entering the kitchen, I found that the dogs water bowl that was glass (which was just a little bowl that I have had for years), had shattered into a few large and some small pieces. This was a thin, clear glass bowl. There was nothing around it, or above it to fall on it to make this happen. I even looked at the window above it to make sure no one sent something flying through the window to fall down and hit it.. it exploded with force, as the sides were busted out and glass pieces thrown up to 5', but the base was still just sitting in the same spot.
strange... this happened to me just now
while i was checking my emails... i had aa empty glass cup on the pc table beside my monitor.. suddenly i heard a faint sound which resmbles that of a vibrating rod... when i checked my cup, it had a crak in its base... i was scared to death... but can anyone explai to me why these kinds of phenomena occur?? is there a scientific explanation for this?
OMG I was lying in bed last when the most bizare thing happened !! I thought batman had flew through my window at 3am!!! only to discover it was shower glass that had shattered into tiny little pieces.
The Kingdom Hoosing are no fixing it thought buggers !!!!!
Just a few minutes ago, my parents went out to the garage to clean some stuff up, I was in the living room, my brother was in the downstairs living room, and my cat was asleep, right next to me.
I head a loud crash, like someone dropped a plate, and ran out to see if my parents were okay. They told me it might've been them setting down a bag full of bottles down too hard, but that wasn't it.
Turns out, I ran right past the broken window in the dining room. It had broken inwards, or as if someone inside the house punched it. I've been reading through a few of these stories, and it seems to happen in cold weather (Michigan is very cold during winter) and when the house temperature is 67-70 degrees Farenheit, (68 right now).
But it IMPLODED, how can I explain that, when there's another sheet of glass behind a film behind the broken piece, still intact?
Just had a similar experience. I was sitting at my computer when I heard a "sharp" noise followed by the tinkling sound of glass breaking. I couldn't tell from what room the noise came from, as I was investigating rooms, the breaking noise continued and I found a bedroom window shattered. As the above poster noted, this was the inner pane of a double paned window and the glass was strewn about 5 feet into the room. Of course it happened on a Friday night with temps in the twenties (location NC)
This just happened to me now. I was in my room browsing the net, and I heard this weird shrill 'popping' sound. Not really shattering, popping. I went out to check it out, and the top half of one of the glass cabinet doors under my TV had shattered. I kind of approached it to see what happened, but after I took a step, the whole rest of the door sort of just exploded, not like a bomb or anything, it kind of violently shattered. I was going to pick the shards up and put them in a bag, but the glass started jumping up and popping, so I got spooked and came back into my room. I know the door was tempered glass, does that have to do with anything?
So glad I found this site. Yesterday one side of my 4 sided Ikea glass cabinet (of which I have 2) just exploded!! It was really freaky..it was a very hot day - prob about 35deg C outside but I am glad my house in not possessed :) makes you wonder though...At least I saved all my precious Waterford Champagne glasses yay
I had a very scary experience yesterday. The side glass panel of the bath exploded with my one and half year old in the bathroom. The glass caused 3 deep laserations to her head which all had to be xrayed and glued. She also had several minor cuts to her hands and side of face. Needless to say her mother was very shook from the event as I was in the bathroom and could not understand what happened. Thank fully I had not got as far as getting her and her 5 year old brother in to the bath. These comments have at least stopped me from thinking I had a moments madness!!! I hope my experience may prevent another child getting injured as a result of this
Yesterday morning (22.1.10) a loud explosion ripped through the house. I was convinced something had crashed through the roof as what seemed to sound like debris falling down after impact. I ran outside to my partner Maureen to see if she was OK. We checked the roof and house and finally the downstairs shower room to be greeted by a deep sea of 10mm thick toughened glass chips. Maybe millions! It tranpires that our 3 years old curved shower screen collapsed albeit for no apparent reason whatsoever. What a mess! You couldn't see the floor for the glass! Today the supplier advised it is common and can happen to anyone, anytime. Meanwhile the Insurance company say something MUST have happened to cause it. Thank goodness the room was not occupied- that's all I can say apart from why? Now that's a complete mystery! It seems best to avoid toughened, or at least apply a protective film both sides, the same as they do to 'bomb proof' glazed windows in city buildings. Still thinking about this..but in the meantime looking for a plastic solution to make good.
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one to have the exploding glass experience, though sorry to hear that glass is exploding all over the place. It's a dangerous situation. I've had drinking glasses explode in all sorts of ways--sometimes in a thousand pieces, sometimes in only two, a top and a bottom. Once the bottom just dropped out of a tumbler. I'm too old to get upset or worried about little kitchen disasters but I had been wondering why it was happening. After reading all these posts, I still am not sure I understand. So far no injuries, but it's a pain to have to put out the dogs, get out the vacuum, and go over everything where the pieces hit. And I usually miss some little bits. How odd that no one seems to really know what's going on with this. Evidently it goes on all over the world.
Hi, I just had an ikea purple glass cup explode in my hand. It was not heated, the cabinet was in was cool. I had added to the cup a can of chopped clams and broth, also at room temperature. I was standing near a refrigerator - door of refrig closed - contemplating what to add to clams and broth in cup. Sudden loud crack, like thunder, and glass exploded. In my face (lucky me I wear glasses) and all over my clothes and in fragments on the floor. I took iphone pictures and am wondering if I should contact Ikea.
Surely glass that is capable of spontaneously exploding isn't fit for sale.
We had a glass measuring jug blow up in our kitchen sink last night. I had been upstairs when I heard a loud bang.
The jug had been sat in the sink for about 24 hours with some water in it and was being used to soak cutlery. There was nothing else around it; nothing to fall on it or anything like that.
Shards of glass had ended up on the kitchen floor, across the unit, and scattered along the window sill. The force of the explosion must have been tremendous and I'm thankful that it hadn't broken in my hand, as has happened to others who have posted their comments.
I worry now for the day when I'm eating food from my toughened glass plate and it decides to explode in my face..
I work for a glass processing company, and we deal with toughened glass everyday, so hopefully i can put a few peoples minds at rest.
Toughened(tempered) glass, is glass that has been heat treated for two main reasons:
1: Increase the physical strength of the glass.
2: In the event of a breakage, the glass breaks "safe" into lots of little pieces.
If a piece of glass has holes or cutouts in it, it should be toughened to strengthen stress concentration points.
Over the past 10 years or so I have had reported perhaps maybe 10 of our installed products where the glass has failed inthe spontaneous fractures described above. The general consensus is that these cases of glass "exploding" with no impact etc, are down to Nickel Sulfide impurities within the glass which find thier way in during the melting stage of manufatcure.
So how do we reduce the risk of spontaneous failure?
There is a process called Heat Soaking, which aims to reduce these impurities during the toughening process by keeping the glass at an elevated temperature.
However, Heat Soaked Toughened glass costs more than standard toughened glass, hence it is generally not offered as a standard product.
Hope this helps.
Have a quick look on everyones fave video site to see loads of examples of how strong toughened (tempered) glass is.
I was making meatballs, & needed to thaw out the hamburger in the microwave. I pushed the start bottom, & heard a sharp crack. I looked at the microwave carefully, wondering what had just broken. Then I glanced at my Whirlpool glass top stove. The glass was shattered in a star pattern, starting between 2 burners on the left. The stove was not on, it was not hot. The stove had not been used for over 24 hours. It looked like someone had taken a hammer & smashed it. I've had the stove for 3 1/2 years. Nothing fall on it, it just spontaneously busted. A new glass top from the manufacturer is $380.
Following my earlier post since our curved 10mm thick shower screen glass blew up I am, or course, having troubles to get a replacement as the supplier apparently no longer trades with LIETZ (the manufacturer- who I cannot trace on the web)and wants me to buy a new enclosure that's smaller and costs over twice as much. However, I am coming to think the Public should be made aware of the Health and Safety risk when buying toughened glass shower screens,and anything else produced from it. What are the Authorities doing?
Thank Goodness I'm not alone. I was putting away my dishes last night..they were in a dryer rack in the sink. All at room temp. I reached a beer glass ( was not wet, cracked, cold and was in an upright position) I had it in in my hand- just about to put it in my cupboard when it exploded into a million pieces. My thumb got the worst of it. I got 1 very deep cut and one on my index finger along with a few other slight cuts. I'm still shocked and traumatized by the whole thing. I can't believe it missed my eyes because the glass literally flew everywhere. Very troubling. I'll never look at glass the same way again. Ever.
This morning I woke up to an explosion of a 10mm toughned glass which I paid £300 to cover a stone table. This explosion happened at 6.30 am with no one near the table. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHY? WHY DOES GLASS EXPLODE RANDOMLY??
I felt somewhat sheepish as I googled glass bowl shatters out of the blue, and was relieved and amazed at all of the replies. Last night at 10:30 I heard glass shattering in my kitchen, went to investigate and found nothing. Totally confused. This morning I went into the cupboard and found a glass bowl crushed to smithereens. The upside is that it was sitting on top of another bowl and most of the shards just dropped in to it. Well, I guess no pissed off ghosties for me....which is a much better story. :)
I was sitting in the living room watching TV when I heard a loud pop like a balloon popped. I investigated the noise to find out that my sliding glass door to patio had broken into millions of pieces but stuck together. This was about three hours ago and it is still intack. I thought maybe someone shot it with a BB or a bird had flown into the glass but there is no hole and no BB and I did not find a bird. It is weird and a bummer. Now I will have to get it repaired. Wierd!
2/21/10 We experience a bazzare incident with our bathroom vanity glass vessel bowl. It exploded into a million pieces making a hurandous sound. Luckly no one was in the bathroom at the time of explosion. Pieces of glass flew up and over the shower curtain which is over 5 feet high. So, the force of explosion was great. We were entertaining a party at the time. One of our guest is a Plumbing engineer and he was baffled by what happened and stated usually this combustion is due to drastic temperture change. But with no other explanation why this happened. This product is from
China and I expect that has a lot to do with a lack of safty inspection and possibly material impurities.
so last night my cousin my aunt and i were sitting outside chit chatting,drinking a glass of red wine no unusual weather we live in southern california it was about 52 degrees give or take a few degrees. all of a sudden my cousins wine glass EXPLODED! and i mean EXPLODED wine went all over her face the glass was in a MILLION peices. the only thing i was thinking is I HAVE NEVER SEEN this befor!neither had my aunt who i 44 years old! just reading about everyones experiances cant help but think it has something to do spiritually? crazzzyy!
I was in the restroom when I hear what sounded like a glass plate crashing on the floor. I come back into the living room and ask my girlfriend what happened. She said she didn't know, that the two dogs were sleeping on the floor and she was sleeping on the couch and heard a high-pitched shattering noise and looked at the living room table where we had just eaten dinner and one of the glasses full of tea shattered all over the room like it had exploded. We both sat there like...what? Until I saw this website.
We were eating lunch when we heard a loud noice upstairs. I thought my daughters book shelf fell down, but as we inpected the rooms we found our master's bedroom glass shower door completely broken into little pieces. Very weird how this happen, but glad to hear that we are not alone. Strange.
I was just showering yesterday afternoon, when one of the show door glass panels just exploded in the center--as though someone had punched a fist sized hole through the glass. Being safety glass, I was not hurt and none of the thousands of pieces was over 3-4 mm in size. The glass continued to fracture, pop and shatter over the next few hours.
Around twelve years ago, we had a large bathroom mirror spontaneously shatter--or fall off the wall--we never knew which. Luckily, everyone was in another room when it happened.