Silent Sunday

/ Su Leslie

… nah, just kidding.

My Sunday has been anything but silent. The sound that a door-sized sheet of toughened glass makes when it explodes and falls into a tiled floor is horrendous.

I know this because I was (luckily) in the next room when our shower door exploded and shattered.

The photo shows all that remains; a few shards attached to the hinge.

I am grateful the bathroom wasn’t occupied.

I’m also grateful for insurance.

But as this is the second sheet of glass in our that’s broken recently (the rangehood cover broke a month or so ago), I am beginning to feel slightly jinxed.

I’ve heard that soprano voices can shatter wine glasses; but I wasn’t even singing.

66 thoughts on “Silent Sunday”

      • I am glad Leslie. Stay safe and perhaps think of using Perspex “plasticky type material” to avoid this from happening again. Strange it has happened to you twice now? Hmm maybe you should go after the manufacturer too ha ha and have them solve the mystery of the shattering tempered glass. Have a good Monday!

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    • Thank you. Me too. The door was incredibly heavy and there was glass everywhere. Not sharp, because it’s like windscreen glass, but it must have exploded with a bit of force to spread so widely.

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    • Not as odd as it seems apparently. The guy I talked to at the insurance company said it’s pretty common. Which is quite reassuring from that point of view, because they are used to claims, and were really helpful in terms of getting it replaced, etc.

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    • 🙂 I did actually wonder about an earthquake, but there was only sound and no movement. I thought it might have been a storm too, but saw no lightening.
      Apparently, it can just happen. Defects in the glass or tiny bits of damage on installation can magnify over time until there is no structural integrity left and it goes.

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      • Yikes! Good job it was toughened glass, but still a horrid mess to clean up. And claiming on insurance always affects your insurance payments for at least three years. At least it does here.

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    • Thank you 🙂 It was the second glass breakage we’ve had recently and I was home alone for both, so it was pretty scary. I actually didn’t discover yesterday’s at first. I though a tree had fallen on my car or something and walked all round the house and garden looking for what might have happened. It’s only when I went to take a shower that I realised what had broken, and that it was so loud cos I’d been on the other side of the wall 🙂

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      • Such a mystery. I think the person who mentioned tiny earthquake might be on to something. Sooo glad you weren’t in the shower when it happened. We also have a glass shower enclosure, so I’m eyeing mine with suspicion now.

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        • I just realised I didn’t mention it in my earlier reply to you. The insurance person I spoke to said it’s not common, but also not unheard of. It is usually caused by a a tiny flaw in the glass, or a chip/crack made when it was installed. Over time, that weakens the structure and it finally gives way. I don’t know if there is any way to check for damage that might lead to failure. With ours, the problem seems to have started near the door handle. You can see cracks radiating out from that point, and that side of the door collapsed completely.
          Not very comforting I’m afraid, but perhaps it is possible to check yours to make sure it’s ok.

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    • I talked to the insurance guy, and the Big T has done some research and it seems that if there was a tiny bit of damage done perhaps during installation, or a small defect in the glass, these can grow and eventually the whole thing breaks. There are obvious cracks radiating out from where the handle was, so I’m guessing there may have been a miniscule chip or something when it was screwed on. The door’s been there for 12 years!!!!

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    • Thanks for sending that link 🙂 The insurance guy I spoke to said it’s not that uncommon. Tiny stress fractures can occur during installation, or there can be small defects in the actual glass. Eventually these get bigger and radiate outward from the source of the problem. We can see (from what’s left of ours) that the area round the handle seems to be the origin. 🙂

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  19. wow – cool image – and I also read the comment about his is not so odd – Hmmm

    anyhow, glad it is all working out- and that picture would have been good for silent – but glad it came with explanations

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  23. Two glass explosions with only a month between them might seem suspicious (ghosts and all), but not to me. In November 2016, my car was hit and damaged four times while in a car park, and after all those repairs someone made a deep scratch across two doors which is still there as I just gave up. A bad month, I suppose 🙂 Glad no one was inside that shower – could get a heart attack.

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