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: Almost 300 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. Please read it before posting YET ANOTHER comment about how nobody knows why this happens. Plenty of people know.
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.
I just got back from The King Rufus Pub in Hampshire and my beer glass exploded. The bar staff say that it happens there all the time. They claim that the pub is haunted and that this very morning the an entire contents of a shelf had mysteriously fallen onto the floor with no explanation. We are convinced it was a ghost.
I purchased the glass measuring cup a month ago and It was still sitting in the shopping bag because it was not needed to use. Last night I found it shattered in small pieces. Even the thick handle was in small pieces. Everyone shocked in the family the plastic bag was not damaged and we started thinking about ghost because we never heared anything like this.
I was in the shower on sunday afternoon and as i went to open the shower door to get out it went bang like a shot gun,glass all over the place and i was left holding the handle!!! how i only cut my foot and back is still a mystery to me, if my young son had been in there i dread to think what would have happened and the amount of glass was mad it also turned to dust, im still finding bits now.
The suppler is replacing it but did say that it has happened to three other units. As mentioned by someone else, why would you want the same glass type put back in, thats kinda dicing with death and maybe next time it decides to explode all over my bathroom it will seriously hurt someone.
Abt an hour ago, I went to get a glass of tap water from the kitchen. Came back had few sips, on my table my laptop , empty cd oove & my mobile phone.While workin, I drank the last sip and placed it on the table.Within a minute the glass exploded right in font of my eyes. I took a picture , that was the weirdest thing every.My colleaues heard the explosion and came to look.There must b some scientific explanation, I want to know why?Im worried w@ if I was drinking when it exploded?
We purchased a glass dining room table from Macy's in Cinti. Table made in China (or Vietnam) and imported by a Canadian Company - O'Palier.
Only used table 2 x in 8 months. Nothing sitting on table. It spontaneously exploded into a million pieces in the middle of the night.
Anyone had a similar experience with this table or company? Please reply to dcleroy@fuse.net
Don
This morning around 5:15am I heard a noise from my downstairs, only me and my Yorkie were home at the time. I thought maybe he had knocked his pet gate down or something, he was not barking or anything like that so I ignored the sound. To my suprise when I got up around 6:15am I heard a crackling noise, thinking that it maybe hail hitting the patio door I opened the blinds and to my suprise the glass was all shattered. There are no holes the outside screen is intact, just real wierd and glad the wife was not at home to experience this alone.
Thank god I am not alone. Me and my wife were watching TV in our bedroom when we heard a loud explosion. I thought a tree had fallen on my car parked outside as it was quite windy. To our utter shock, we soon discovered that the toughened glass door to our shower had exploded into a million little pieces which kept on making popping sounds for several minutes. I can't understand how it could happen? I have read some explanations but this was installed 18 months ago and could this wait that long before exploding? Anyway I made a short video of the aftermath:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AUt0WN3Xjo
well i was just sitting in the basement with two of my buds while out of nowhere a glass that was literally filled with nothing popped. Nothing had touched the glass, and it had spontaneously exploded. I have no clue how this happened but if you can explain this to me thatd be fantastic. I havent slept for 3 days because of this and sex just isnt the same because of the pervervial glass shattering please help!
I am too very pleased to have found this site.
5 minutes ago I honestly thought someone had shot out a window. Unlikely in the middle of nowhere in leafy Sussex I know, but I had no other explanation.
In the kitchen I could hear popping and cracking noises inside a cupboard. It turned out that a glass pan lid had shattered.
At least it's not evil spirits!
Our 3/8" rainglass shower door exploded spontaneously last Saturday. I heard a loud noise from the bedroom and went to investigate. It had completely shattered into thousands of pieces. I was dumbfounded.
I was glad to find this site, I know we didn't do anything wrong. The door was only 4 years old and was frameless. Crazy stuff!
I like many people writing in, am glad to hear this has happened to other people. When I tell people about it, they don't believe me. Two days ago the glass door from a cabinet I bought at Ikea exploded about 3 am. It had been in place for about 6 months. It was very stormy so I am chalking it up to barometic pressure?? I live in Georgia, USA. In the previous house I lived in the shower door exploded at about 3 am. it had been in place for about 2 years and the door had been shut, so there wasn't pressure from the frame. And just before I was ready to move, stick on mirrors started dropping off the wall, one every night. When I pulled the rest of them off, they were taped on so good that chunks of sheetrock came off. I have also had a glass cutting board blow-up.
Most of these posts deal with sheets of glass, either table tops or shower or cabinet doors.
This morning a huge crystal candelabra which had been the centerpiece on my dining room table for the past 4 years, spontaneously shattered into a million pieces. Is there any scientific reason for this?
In the evening yesterday, our cleaning lady was cleaning the house while my husband and I were singing in our living room. We heard some noise, but didn't bother much thinking the cleaning lady my have dropped something from the kitchen (not necessarily glass).
We went out and returned at night. As we were walking up the stairs we heard some soft rice crispy like noise. We were quiet and trying to find where it was coming from. As my husband opened the bathroom door, he saw our shower glass door shattered into a zillion pieces on the floor.
My husband thought it may have been the cleaning lady who was frustrated with whatever reason who banged the bathroom glass door against the wall and left it broken without informing us. He linked this situation to the sound we heard earlier in the day.
I wasn't quite convinced. I came up with a realization that this could be some freak accident that happened which has no explanations for and are unexplainable.
I am relieved to know that I am not alone. This website it a great help. I still don't know, it could be the cleaning lady or it could be the glass freak accident as we live in Thailand and it is extremely hot at this point. It's about 45 degrees celcius. I hope my husband gains some insight to see where I'm coming from with the help of you guys. Again thank you, thank you.
I had a similar experience with exploding glass, I had a plant stand with a large round glass plate on top of a metal stand with three prongs. There was a relatively heavy terra cotta pot on top. I was talking with my sister drinking margaritas and all of the sudden the glass plate shattered into hundreds of small pieces and the little pieces hit the floor and continued to pop and bounce around the room for almost half and hour, just like popcorn. It was truly bizarre, we thought it was supernatural.... The safety glad makes sense, I am glad to finally have an answer...
I just experienced exploding glass myself today. I was re-installing my two 2'x6' sliding glass shower doors after having the shower stall regrouted, and one of the doors exploded in my hands as I was holding it vertically getting ready to place the glass door panel back on its roller-wheel track. these are frameless glass panels. There was no pressure on the glass, no bangs, no shaking, no vibrations and nothing hit it. My hands were holding the glass panel about two thirds of the way up, or about two feet from the top.
As the door exploded, glass chunks, about 1/4 inch square went flying everywhere. And the glass chunks were propelled upward and outward somehow. I have physical evidence proving this, as one of the roller wheels clamped to the top of the door was propelled upwards, hit the stainless steel top of the shower door frame and put a nick in it. Chunks of glass were sitting on the top of my medicine cabinet which only could have happened by some form or propelsion as the top of the medicine cabinet was higher than the height of the glass panel at the time of the explosion. Glass chunks flew laterally as well, as chunks of glass were 10 feet away in the bathroom, in the bedroom and in the study, which is around the corner of the doorway!
I am a scientist by training and have never experienced anything like this and understand the laws of physics, but this type of "glass explosion" is totally unexplainable at this point.
We had this black toughed glass table top. Yesterday night i was asleep and suddenly woke up by a huge nice of explosion. I wondered for some seconds and then realized this table top have been exploded and broken into millions of small pieces. Also behavior of these pieces was strange. They are continuously popping up like popcorns in a machine. I was astonished by this incident as this has never happend before. I googled the situation and found this. Glad to knw people with same experiences. I think cause would be the temperature as it was more than 100 F yesterday. But still not yet completely convinced.
At 4:00 am this morning (5-28-2010) I was abruptly awaken by the sound of glass breaking. Besides scaring me half to death, my poor dog nearly jumped out of her skin as well.
In the absolute darkness, fumbling around to locate the light switch, and continuing to hear this crackling sound, I had no clue as to what was going on. When I realized it was glass, my first thought was that one of the overhead mirrors on my bed must of broke. When I looked up and saw all were intact, I was even more puzzled. Then I thought maybe a picture dropped; however, the pictures on the wall that had glass in them were clear across the other side of the room. Seeing that the concentration of glass was directly on the floor next to my bed and the night stand, I then noticed the glass top to the table had shattered. I purchased this glass top at Walmart nearly 5 years ago, and I have another identical to it on a table on the other side of the bed.
I have never heard of such a thing. For tempered glass to just explode for no apparent reason it beyond comprehension. Temperature in my bedroom was in the upper 60's so heat could not have been the reason. Since I was asleep, and so was my dog, it definitely was not from anything I, or she was doing. Now I'm scared to think the other one could do the same thing. Very strange.
The glass in my entertainment center just blew out, scared the crap out of me. No one touched it before it popped and it is the craziest thing I think I've ever seen that I couldn't explain. Does anyone have a clue???
Here it is, the answers to everyones problems.
http://www.glassonweb.com/articles/article/330/
We purchased a glass topped dining room table from Macy's in Cincinnati. Used it twice. Exploded in a million pieces in the middle of the night. Nothing sitting on it.
Would anyone else who has purchased a glass table from Macy's, and whose table has exploded contact me directly.
Donald C. LeRoy
Attorney at Law
dcleroy@fuse.net
6/10/2010
I just picked up a glass that had been sitting on the sink to fill it with water for a drink.
It exploded in my hand into a million little chunks of glass. I felt a vibration in my hand and ringing in my ears afterward.
I'm glad to find this web page to know this has been happening. It's very strange.
Just went to get a glass of water from the bathroom sink, was running the glass under the water and it slipped from my hand. It didn't really fall, just slid down the sink and the it exploded all over my hand. The pieces went all over the place and were sort of interconnected like a jigsaw. Was very weird. I guess it must have been slightly hardened or something.
Staying at a resort this weekend for our anniversary and the shower door exploded! My husband and I were visiting with friends on our patio, and heard what sounded like a gunshot and the 1 1/2 - 2'' tempered glass, completely shattered outward, spewing glass out 5 ft. Very scary and luckily no one was hurt. Glad to find this site.
We installed a solid wood back door three months ago to replace the sliding glass back door as it was well,...the new door has tempered glass and is double paned, Not twenty minuets ago, my children and I were sitting in the living room when we heard a loud POP! the glass on the inside of the house shattered. No one was in the room at all. after reading all of these posts I am forced t believe that the temperature differences between the inside and outside are to blame as the AC is on and set at 85 and the outside temp is 116 ( I live in Arizona its not uncommon). 6-28-2010
I was just running the water to start washing the pots,when the glass next to me on the side just blew up, i didn't touch it. My husband thought I knocked it but I was no way near it. He started to clear up the pieces and glass was popping and cracking in his hand, weird!!!!!
I had to look at this as in the last 2 days i've had to glass tumblers just break for no reason at all. The first happened 2 days ago and had been used for a drink while at dinner and had been left on the table. I vaguely remember hearing a loud "ping" noise but still not 100% sure on this. I went to get the glass off the table after giving my son a bath and putting him to bed and about a cm down from the top of the glass had cracked all the way around the glass. We thought it was a bit weird but just put it down to it must have been cracked to begin with.
Well about 10 minutes ago another one of the same glass tumblers I had a chocolate milkshake in the glass which had been in the cupboard and was room temperature. I had finished the glass and there was only the remaining bits of milk you would find in any other glass which had been down by my sofa for about 45 minutes when suddenly a loud "ping" noise and the bottom of the glass which is about 1 inch thick had broken in half. Now nobody had touched it and there was no heat source by it.
What is really strange about the break is its completely smooth all the way around the break like running your finger over a glass table.
My dad and his wife experienced the shattered glass syndrome 2 days ago. Their shower exploded at 7.3 in the evening. No one in the room and temp' not high. They have only purchased the property and when they rang the builder and bathroom supplier, they both said "you must have banged it". Seeing as their in the business of glass and bathroom suits, you'd think they would have a bit more compassion for an older couple. Going to ring them now and look for an apology.Thanks to whoever started this site ;-)
i was at work when i lacerated my hand by shattering glass.. it was a glass sangria dispenser i picked up and it exploded in my hands causing significant damage to my hand. on the ground the glass was popping... there is no way i could have broken that with my bare hands...
mi hermana dice que a limpiado un vidrio de una ventana que estaba cerca de una estufa a leñas, le paso un trapo frio y dice que exploto esto le ocasiono muchos cortes en la mano y le corto tendones de la mano. fue a operacion por esto. realmente explota un vidrio q este caliente si lo limpiamos con un paño frio? tengo mis dudas
I’m really glad to find this site so now i know that i’m not crazy and it wasn’t a poltergeist in our apartment.
At 06:15 this morning me and my husband were awaken by the sound of explosion. It was like a gun shot. We jumped out of our bed and ran to our living-dining room. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My husband was still sleepy and he couldn’t realize what have just happened. I was pointing my fingers at the table – It’s broken, it’s broken. Our table had exploded into a million little pieces which kept on making popping sounds for several minutes. It was a sound of a pop corn. The whole area was full of glass chunks. We have a corridor leading from the living area to our bedroom and the glass pieces were even there. My husband immediately took some pictures to show them to the sales representative of the shop where we had bought it. We purchased it just five months ago after our baby boy was born. I can’t imagine what tragedy it would be if all of us were in that area, if it happened an hour later when we usually wake up to go to work. Our son’s car seat was close to the table and it was full of glass pieces. I thank God that it happened when no one was there and that no one was injured.
Few hours later my husband went to the shop to show pictures to their representative but the manager was quite neutral to what had happened, saying that probably it was our fault, that maybe we moved it and caused a damage to it. Well, at 6 a.m. moving the table is not a proper thing to do. We have never moved it after it was assembled by the guys from that shop.
I don’t know if they are going to refund us or not. I know just one thing that i will never buy a tempered glass topped dining table again.
Glad I found your site while Googling "spontanious glass breakage on washing machine"
This morning at 5:30am while my teenager went to bed and my husband got up to go to work they heard an unusual noise downstairs.
Upon investigating they found a broken glass washing machine window partially popped out, cracked and broken pieces on the floor. There are chunks and slivers in a four foot radius; clean up will begin this afternoon after I call the manufacturer and take pictures.
The door had been left open with some laundry allready in the machine and I was waiting to add some more today. No unusual circumstances.
The frontloader washer is not even a month old; made in the USA, but who knows where the glass came from.
We live in Ontario and purchased the washer locally. The washer is under warranty. I just wanted to share that it happens to washing machines also. Thanks for all the contributions. We are building a new house and there will be no glass shower walls in any of the bathrooms.
One side note; I purchased this washer on June 22/10 and it was delivered the day after; the same day that we had an earthquake.
We had a 150mm thick toughened glass table top 1m square supported on four pillars. Two days ago it exploded spontaneously in my presence: nothing impacted it, there was no temperature change, there was no vibration.
Large and small fragments of crazed glass were spread over a large area of the living room, crackling away. This suggests that there was a lot of potential energy stored in the glass.
It would have been one hell of a party trick if it had occurred when we had company.
Continued!
Today at around 5:30pm we heard a similar sound from the laundry room as last week and sure enough another piece of glass from the washer door has tumbled to the floor. I had not cleaned up our incident of 07/29/10 yet as our washer has been in our house for only one month and is still covered by a guarantee. Touching nothing untill the repair men are here. The laundry room has been off limits since July 29; even the laundry that was partially loaded awaiting some additional items is where I left it. We'll see.
Good citing of experiences here....some crazy sheite indeed. Was awoken from sleep by a HUGE boom, crash, whoosh sound...We were both in bed trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Got up and walked into the bathroom to find one of the sliding glass shower doors exploded all over the bathroom and shower floor...with the weird snap, crackle, pop. Very strange indeed. Just glad somebody was not in the shower when this happened...Think I am going to switch to a shower curtain !!
8-1-10 I had just finishing cleaning a stero cabinet with a big glass door. I turned to walk away and thorw out the paper towels I used and thank goodness I did because the stereo door exploded and glass pieces went flying everywhere. I heard several popping noises just before the explosion. I was shocked and took pictures. There were litterally a million pieces and some of the glass was like glass dust when I swept up. I heard it's the glass made in Mexico and not tempered and cannot with stand heat/cold temperature changes such as we have in our homes with heat and air conditioning. My legs and feet would have been mashed and I would be in the hospital if I had been standing there cleaning still. Got glass framents in the back of my heels many feet away from the explosion but could have been worse.
A friend of mine was about to make dinner. As he opened the cabinet to take out a pan, one of the glass pot covers fell out and shattered into pieces. He had me leave the kitchen because I was barefoot however, a few minutes later he called me right back in; alarm in his voice. He was standing there not moving at all. Confused, I followed his gaze to the pile of glass. Not only were the shards making a popping sound, but they were jumping off the floor. Certainly no phenomenon, but still intriguing. I grabbed my cell and shot a video of it, but I only managed to capture the popping sound. I could see the glass jumping off the floor in various places, with my own eyes, but could not see that later in the playback of the video clip. If anyone else experiences this, do not fret. More than likely it is not paranormal activity. We attributed it to physics(i.e. the same effect a hot surface has on dry rice).
The other night my husband and I were sitting on our back porch. It was a nice cool evening in IN so we were sitting there watching tv. Then we heard an explosion like sound and ran into the family room where I turned on the light and found a shelf on the tv stand had shattered. It was three years old and there was nothing out of the ordinary except some neighbors where having a party and the music was very loud and there was alot of bass. Could this have made the glass break? Everything else was fine in the house.
My shower cubicle glass side panel just exploded leaving the whole sheet crazed and the centre of the panel collapsed on the floor- any explanations?
Just now, my mum called me into the kitchen - she'd been getting something out of a cupboard when she heard an explosion and when she turned around there was glass all over the floor, thick glass that had shattered into tiny pieces. Closer inspection revealed that it was a glass measuring jug that had been drying in the sink. It was so weird, but at least we know we're not alone in our odd experience now!
Yet another tale here of a spontaneous pint glass explosion. This one also had a logo on it (Franks) like a lot of the one's listed above. Perhaps something in the process of putting the image on the glass causes some kind of imperfection...
The glass had just been washed in slightly warm water and was drying off. This too seems to be a common element. The glass wasn't being touched by anyone or anything and when it exploded it sent glass shards flying the length of the kitchen...
I can only wonder why such a common and dangerous flaw hasn't received more media attention...
It was freedom time for me since my wife had gone to her office and I could smoke in my home freely. I lit up a cigarette and started working on my laptop. I had kept a empty ceramic cup besides my laptop..at least a foot away from it. I heard a sharp crackling sound from the cup. I scanned it and found no cracks on it. I kept it back, but now I could hear a continuous crackling sound emerging from it. I grabbed the cup and took it to the kitchen where it blasted in my hand…..hundreds of pieces could be seen spread all over the kitchen.
I could not figure out the reasons behind it.
3 new plate glass sliding windows installed on our condo balconies have shattered and dropped onto the grounds below. The plate glass has the safety stamp and is of recent manufacture.
Are we to believe that plate glass is safe for window and door installations?
Woke up in the middle of the night at 430am from the sound of what sounded like something had crashed on the floor in the house. My Wife went into the bathroom and thought that someone had broken into the house as glass was all over the bathroom floor. I noticed the shower door had spontaneously exploded, I was looking for anything that might have hit it, even a stray bullet that might have come in through the bathroom window, but nothing. Strange occurance, but did some research online and realized that this kind of stuff happens frequently. The door is still crackeling and disintegrating as I type. Scary and lucky no one was in there. I took a hot shower at 11pm earlier tonight.
Same as what's been said here,Last night@ approx 3 am we were awoken to lound crash and shatter,scaring the hell out of my wife and I ,and especially the dog which lays in the hall @ night.Upon further investigation noticed the shower door had as well spontaniously exploded into a million shards and was as well still snap ,crackling and popping.nothing seems to have caused this.Purely strange and scary to happen especially out of a dead sleep.
I had a pint glass of water on my desk I had filled it up with another glass about 30 minutes before the incident. I had drunk the first glass. I was led down on my bed on my laptop when I lost a level on the game I was playing. I looked up to my desk and saw my glass of water and felt thirsty and I was staring at it and it just exploded in to millions of little shards of glass and there was water everywhere. This happened about 30 minutes ago.
Last Friday night at our christian home group in Riverside CA. we heard a really loud shattering sound. An empty wine glass had shattered at the stem and the rest of the glass remained intact. No one touched it, nothing fell on it and the room temperature was normal. Someone was talking across the room and previously we were singing with a guitar and cello. Weird?!
10-09-10
4:30 pm A water glass setting on the drying board for at least 20 min, suddenly exploded in a million pcs, flying all over the kitchen, it sounded like a gunshot. para-normal-poltergiest?
rochester ny...awakened at 6:15 by very loud and long crashing sound...really scared me...turned out that 3 year old shower door had spontaneously exploded into a skillion pieces..shower last used four days ago
relieved to find this site and discover that it is caused by a known manufacturing issue.
Was at work this morning fixing my second cup of chai tea when a very thick coffee cup broke in half right in my hand. The mug was room temperature. Although the chai tea exploded everywhere, I was fortunate that the glass itself didn't explode into a million pieces as so many of you have described. An eerie feeling does come over you when this happens so I was glad to see that spontaneous combustion does occur and it doesn't necessary mean you're crazy!
I'm writing to thank the people that shared their experiences with shattering glass. I live in Wisconsin, but my family lives in Chile. One of my sisters told me that she was celebrating her new apartment, had guests, and when everyone was ready to eat in the terrace, the glass table top shuttered suddenly and disappeared into zillions of tiny pieces, along with the bottles of wine, whiskey, and the drinking glasses on the table. She told me that everyone was left with with a feeling of sheer Terror, no food, and wondering what and why it happened. After finding this wonderful page, I called her to share some of the experiences and theories...My sister was very happy to hear that she was not alone in her terrible and sad experience...Thanks everyone for taking the time to share your stories...I'm glad that you are doing fine and were not seriously injured in the process!.....Lucy Dowling
Wisconsin, USA.
well my dad was putting on his brand new shower, dark glass, doors. he had just finished putting one on so he moved on to the next. he lifted the shower door and before he even moved to place the door it shattered into a million pieces right out of his hands. he came out and told us and when i went to check there was glass popping all over the floor and some even flew into my parents bedroom floor. there was no explanation why this happened. i read the story's but if it was caused by a crack and pressure then i don't understand why it didn't crack when he was carrying it to the bathroom. its just strange that it exploded right before he put it up. i'm really glad this happened now. i can only imagine if this happened while someone was in there how bad it would have been. my dad did end up getting cuts and glass all over his hands witch made him bleed. It was a pretty crazy and creepy thing.its a pretty rare case witch he first hand experienced literally.
My outdoor setting had a glass tabletop which exploded the other night - huge crash followed by plenty of snap crackle and pop!! Very glad to see its not just me! No extreme temperatures, was about 26C in adelaide, australia. Just hope the insurance company believes me now!!
Our Velux window in our kitchen ceiling self destructed this morning. It had been installed for about 7 years along with 2 others. At first I thought a bird had dropped someting on it but on closer inspection it was the inside pane only of a double glazed pane. Scared my daughter who had been sat under it seconds before.
Reassured that others have experienced similar stories as I have never heard of this before.
It can only be a build up of stress within the glass.
SO NO EXPLANATIONS?????????????????????
tonight a very thick drinking glass cracked and a few weeks back an olive oil bottle cracked open......... NO heating or cooling involved in these events and have researched the relation to esp but nothing........ anyone?????
Fiona,
Seriously? There are DOZENS of explanations offered here, several of them from scientists specializing in glass. I know 250 comments is a lot to read, but there are several specific comments linked from the original posting that have great explanations.
Well, I used to own a couple of lovely cobalt blue mugs. I broke one last year by dropping it. Nothing unusual,there.
Today, I poured myself a nice hot cup of fresh coffee. A heard a snap and saw the coffee pouring out of the bottom. When I later examined the mug, i found it had cracked all the way through the bottom, half way up one side and all the way up the other...just like that.
I had these mugs for several years, used them in the microwave, etc. I guess glass fatigues like metal over time. I'll never use glass mugs for hot beverages again, as pretty as they are.
Well i was Sitting in my room watching tv when i heard a loud smash. I lookEd over by my right foot see that my glass cup had seemingly just exploded . The glass was about 4mm thick about 6 at the base. It hadent all just gone into tiny pieces there was the base with abit still attatched and one other large piece there were a few realy tiny pieces and the remainder were medium sized bits. The smaller bits were around 1ft away but that was because there was a wall in the way. I could see the glass hadnt been knocked over because the base was still in its previous position. Whats more is that the glass isnt at all old. My first thought was that it was super natural and reading the other posts i can see that nobody has any solid scientific proof. Im just going to see if anything else happens arojnd the house and then i will come to conclusions. Untill then id like to know anybody elses thoughts on this
So many stories on here that no one will probably even see this one. I keep my toothbrush in a glass with my university logo on it in my dorm room. It's very nice, made of thick clear glass, not cheap quality at all. A few minutes ago I was typing on my laptop and heard a loud crack/pop. I investigated everything made of glass in that corner of the room and found a crack running around the glass. The weird thing is the crack is internal, meaning if I run my fingernail along the surface I cannot feel a gap at all, but I can see the fissure inside the glass. Strange. The room was warm, about 68 F and and their was no moisture or wiring or electronics around the glass...
Very nice site! is it yours too
Very nice site! is it yours too http://apxoiey.com/qoxt/4.html
My dad's office has a big glass wall that leads out to the rest of the office. There were about four people in his room. Someone went to open the door, and it just EXPLODED. My mom said it sounded like a bomb or a gunshot. Only the glass door explode. How do you explain all the noise??? Most people's theory is from the heat. Inside the room it was nice and toast and the rest of the office was pretty cold. Luckily no one was too badly injured, but there were pieces of glass in my parents' hair and the person went to open the door got a small cut.
Apparently it was pretty scary. My mom got some great photos.
We live in Shanghai, China, and ayis(kind of like maids) and drivers are very common. It's kind of funny that about two seconds later they all went to clean up the glass.
Oh, yeah and this happened about two days ago, so I was doing some research on how this might happen.
It is happening to our bedroom double glass door right now. My husband slid the glass door (with double safe glass) closed and the entire outside sheet of glass suddenly started to crackle as it went completely mosaic. It's just standing there, all cracked; but we keep thinking that at any minute it will all come shattering and tumbling down. It's one of those vinyl framed sliding double doors that give our bedroom access to our patio. Not really sure how to proceed. Am fairly certain we'll be told we can't simply replace the glass, or even the one door; but rather, will end up having to spring for an entire new double door---frame and all. Can't even find the mfgr.'s name on the door. We bought it about 8 years ago. AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!
Well i have been in shock all night and day. Last night my husband was taking a shower and all of a sudden this big bang which sounded like a tv falling came from our master bath room. i ran up tairs to find him in our stand up shower with a hole in it and glass every where. he said he was just rinsing his hair when the shower exploded on him. he was okay. so i called our builder because our house is still under warranty and they keep telling me i have done this for tweenty years and never heard of this happening. they think we did it. i keep trying to figure out why th glass would explode for no apparent reason. so i googled it and thanks to all who have posted it has really helped me out alot.
Just had my own experience.I was in the basement when I heard crash, I thought it may had been siding being ripped off the house by high winds but upon further investigation it was glass shattering. The shelving portion of our entertainment stand shattered causing our electronics to fall to the floor. As we observed in awe the shards continued to pop as described by a number of people.
This happened to my glass dining table a few minutes ago. I was awakened by an explosion, there is glass everywhere and it is still popping. Paris France temperature indoors about 68F. Thanks everyone for the posts. The odd thing is that I had glass items sitting on the table that all remained intact despite the explosion around them.
we were just talking about importing glass products from java and then put a dvd on about java and suddenly one of our louver windows exploded strange coincidence our something more it ?
Hey people - there are no ghosts or spirits here, just physics and poor manufacturing techniques.
What's happening is that when glass heats up it expands (and inversely when it cools it shrinks). When the manufacturer cools their glass product, it's possible during the cooling phase if they do something like dip it in water, that the outside will cool (shrink) around the inside at a much faster rate - this causes a huge amount of stress to build up inside the glass. This stress will always stay there until it is released somehow - usually due to a change in temperature.
I've actually had this happened two me twice with two cheap ashtrays that my wife bought me and also various other times such a pouring really hot water into a cool glass container. (I'm sure the later has happened to most people).
In many cases it just causes a crack or fracture, but if in the manufacturing of the glass they had the rapid cooling problem like I described above, if the glass is heated quickly instead of a crack, you literally get an explosion.
Found this site trying to make sense of why my clear, thick glass, mug exploded in my hand. Never experienced anything like that. I picked it up from in the sink to wash it, had soapy sponge in other hand, and as soon as the sponge touched it, it exploded with great force. Luckily I froze and closed my eyes on instinct. The pieces in the sink comtinued to crackle for a bit. The force knicked up my fingers and hands. It made a good 4ft radius. What a mess to clean up, but the shock still bothers me. There was no temperature conflict. It scared the heck out of me.
My hubby and I were having breakfast (at our "glass" dining table) when there was this terrific explosion which I thought was our TV exloding, but turned out to be the middle shelf, which had completely shattered, of the TV table that had 3 tempered-glass shelves . We were so pleased with the table we had bought 2 years ago, as it was so solid and the glass was beautiful, just what we had been looking for. Anyway, as others have said the "popping" sound of cracking glass went on for some time after. We did have our Sky box and DVD player on that shelf but couldn't work out why it would have exploded at that time. We're just hoping that the other shelves don't explode too as our TV is on the top shelf. We have a thick pile rug just in front and found bits of glass embedded in it for days after. My little grandson and daughter were arriving from Madrid soon and I was very concerned about the dangerous glass chips, which were everywhere. You are not warned about this happening when you buy. Can you claim on house insurance for an incident like this?
I am so glad to find this site and to learn that this did not only happen to me (twice now).
This incident for no apparent reason happened again today in front of me. My first incident was about 10 years ago when I was holding a regular glass tumbler with ice/water and it exploded in my hand into hundreds if not thousands of small pieces. Fortunately, I was not hurt but had quite a mess to cleanup. Anyhow, I thought that was a freak accident.
Today it happended to my wife. She had finished dinner and there was a small glass container that had some food. My daughter was also on the dinning table with my wife. My son & I were watching TV and we heard a loud boom and shattering of glass. The small food container had disintegrated into hundreds of pieces and were all over. Needless to say, my wife was terrified. I told her that I'd experienced it before and calmed here. I wonder it is some sonic wave that causes this..
I was sitting at a table today when a glass candlestick spontaneously exploded right behind my head. I am convinced that a ghost shot it with a revolver. It is true that we have had crazy weather lately (over 10 tornadoes in AR in the last week), with continuous shifts of air pressure, but I am convinced that all of your scientific explanations amount to nothing. It was a ghost-vandal. Glad he spared all of the candlestick's candlestick friends.
Last night my GF came back from a long flight from Asia. She went through her normal routine of taking a ridiculously hot shower and put mask on her face. The mask usually sits for between 5 to 8 minutes. At the end of the wait, while in my room, the glass in the shower sponaneously exploded. Similar story that it sounded like a gunshot followed by the sound of thousands of pieces of glass hitting the tub porcelin. No-one in the bathroom at all.
The glass door was only installed a few weeks ago. I suspect that one of the defects mentioned previously (NiS) combined with the change in temperature (hot to cold from the shower) caused enough stress in the glass to cause it to shatter. This Shower Door "Hangs" from two wheels riding in an overhead track like most with no support on the bottom. This causes SHEAR stress along the entire glass sheet. Today most of these shower doors use aluminum strips to enclose the edges of the glass. This aluminum has a different coefficient of thermal expansion than the glass does so it does not support the glass through the entire temperature swing it sees.
Now to fight the battle with the mfg to see if it can be replaced at no cost.
This incident happened about 7 years ago and I am still not satisfied with probable explanations. I had washed the dishes after dinner and had put a very thick glass tumbler on the dish rack to dry. The glass was about 15 years old and had been sitting on the counter with water for some time. I retired to the family room to read and after about 15 minutes I heard a loud popping noise, then heard glass shattering on the floor. The glass tumbler had exploded into sand. The temperature was around 7 degrees. It is great to know that this happens frequently but I can't say that the possible explanations given cover all instances, as some of the tumblers that have exploded have not beem engraved or may not be tempered glass. Fortunately, no one was in the kitchen but had that not been the case, there could have been injuries.
Hi,before i don't believe in any of these things,i can only see them in some suspence movies ang tv series,but it happened to me,today june 14,2011,after watching movies on my laptop,i have a sleeping disorder or they called it insomia,i usually sleep very late around 2 am or 3am ,i woke up fron the sound of shattered glass,then when i look at my laptop i saw my coffee glass was tottaly shatterd into pieces,besides my laptop,its a kind of a habit for me to drink tea or coffee before going to sleep and leave the glass empty on my wooden table,and the unsuall thing is, the broken parts just near to each other ...
The same thing happened to me about 12 years ago in a very similar circumstance. I too had an entertainment center with a glass front door. One afternoon, I was sitting cross-legged on the floor looking for something under the cabinet. All of a sudden and without touching it, the glass exploded and rained bits of tempered glass all over me. After the initial shock, I noticed that the little bits of glass were going *tink....tink....tink-tink. The small bits of glass (about 1/2 inch bits) were breaking into even smaller bits, and actually jumping about 2 or 3 inches into the air. My friend came over and we sat there watching the glass "popcorn" go on for about an hour. I always wondered if it was some sort of supernatural thing going on in that house. Good to know it wasn't ghosts!
10 am this morning I had been on the phone to my mother for an hour after being upset from major personal problems. On the table nearby, I have two thick glass candle holders. After the conversation with my mother, I heard an almighty crack! One of the holders had exploded in half leaving shards of glass on the table. A few years ago the same thing happened to my shower door. I have also been hearing creaky noises upstairs when I am downstairs lately. Spooky?
I had exactly the same happen to me and my ex gf about 7 years ago, We were sat in bed quite late watching TV, throughout my room were placed 4 glass candle holders (the ice cubed shaped thick glass ones, used to put tea lighter candles in) earlier on I had placed a fresh candle in each of the holders.
Two of them were placed on either side of my turntables, one by my patio door and the other on my bamboo shelves at the end of my bed. The only candles that were alight were the ones either end of my turntables, the other two were unlit and were sat with the fresh un-used candles in.We were lying there when we both heard what sounded like someone walking on a very frosty lawn, we both noticed it and my cat bill who was asleep also jumped up. Weirded out by this we bot started looking around the room for what caused the strange noise she looked out the window while I looked round the room, I came to the unlit glass candle holder at the end of my bed on the bamboo, and I couldn’t believe it, it was actually split in half pretty much perfectly diagonally from corner to corner, and the two pieces were moved about 2 inches apart leaving the candle sat in between them on the bamboo.I picked up the two bits and showed my gf who was at this point freaking out just as much as I was, I placed the two bits back together on the shelf and we both proceeded to get under the duvet and and lie there in a sort of eerie silence both wondering what the hell had just happened.The really weird part is after a few minutes had past, we heard exactly the same noise again, and this is when we were at the point of literally hiding under the duvet! It took me about 10 mins to pluck up the courage to lean over to the end of the bed, I got my Sky remote and poked it through the side of the bamboo shelf nudging the candle holder……. The two pieces literally became 5!! Fell apart soon as it was nudged. Totally totally weird.It was a thick glass candle holder with a brand new unlit tea lighter candle in it! I just don’t understand how this could of happened.If anyone could shed any light on this matter for me it would be much appreciated…..
Happy to find this site thought I was the only 1 yesterday I woke to a loud bang and in my dining room I have a large glass table about 4ft by 6ft half inch thick toughened safety glass supported at five points it exploded and took out a picture frame glass nearly 6 feet away from it witch in turn shattered when I got up to see wat happened the glass was popping for about an hour after it happened really creapy my gf thought it was ghosts lol could not explain it any ideas
Talk about weird... I was in the ICU at a major hospital, watching someone dying, when the glass window between the rooms exploded, sounding like a gunshot! And exploded again! Glass flew everywhere! The staff was stunned at the event. I say, the person went out "with a bang".
7/3/11
My tempered glass patio table top shattered and dropped into thousands of pieces today at about 4 pm. I did not hear it from the front of the house, but my son, who was in the room right by the patio was shocked. It had been quite hot today, so I assumed it was a temperature issue. Never heard of this before.
Re: above post: the table was 16 years old!
Thank God for this website. I was staying in a hotel of all places and this morning right after my shower as I was standing stationary in the shower and not touching anything, one of the shower doors suddenly shattered without any provocation. Thank God it was the outer door and I only got one small cut. The hotel of course was convinced I had done something, but it was the strangest, scariest thing I have seen in a long time... I had no idea this could happen for seemingly no reason.
Wow! I thought I was the only one! I was working at my 10 year old glass-top desk two nights ago, only typing on the keyboard in the metal keyboard drawer. I was not touching the glass top with anything. All of a sudden, it exploded and everything on it, my monitor, printer, and papers, fell to the ground. Luckily, it was safety glass, but it flew at least 6 feet away. The safety glass still includes tiny shards and I ended up with little ones in my feet. Ouch!
I'm going to buy a shop vac tonight to hopefully clean all of it up this weekend. Was really freaked out!!
Shattered safety glass issue.
Last night, same thing happened to us in the middle of the night. Round glass top on outdoor patio table just disintegrated -- poof, except the noise wasn't "poof." Glass pieces all over patio floor!
Read some very early comments -- this is a long thread -- and someone said "chance in a million." Well, add us to the list. Time to buy a lottery ticket?
Today I got freaked out!
I'm packing up a shelf with 3 glass shelves. I have a shelf in my hand and it suddenly exploded. Then the shelf on the seat a few feet a way exploded at the same time. But he funny thing is that the shelf on top -- nothing happened to it.
Why would the shelf on the sofa undernathe breake and not the one on top. Two shelf break at the same time. the one in my hand and the one on the sofa.
OK I live in a house with alot of unexplained stuff happening. But this is the 1st time it happened to me. OK I'm moving.
It's nice to find this site. My favorite cooking dish is a 9x13 very thick glass dish. Yesterday I heated up some pizza in my pan in the oven. I took it out and sat it on the counter gently. The moment it touched the surface it exploded in my hands. I know that glass going from hot to cold quickly can make it break but I never would have thought just taking it out of the oven would make it explode like that! Especially since I keep my house on the hot side and the pan is made for use in the oven. Also I've been using that pan for years... I was so shocked I didn't even notice the deep cuts on my hand til my husband told me I was making a mess on the
floor! I was definitely freaked out!
A glass lid exploded on its own today in my cupboard. Nothing fell on it, no impact at all. Just exploded in pieces, and was hissing for some time afterwards breaking into more pieces further.
https://plus.google.com/106384851351514110088/posts
Today I had the same experience. The glass lid of a small pan suddenly shattered and broken into small pieces. My wife and daughter were very frigtened, seems like the scene of "Final Destination" or a ghost was there. Looked into the thread, especially the glass cancer explanation, seems the bad manufacturing quality control of toughened glass. So this can only become worse all over the world.
4am this morning our house was woken to an explosion i thought we were being broken into with a battering ram! I rushed into my childrens bedroom to find where the noise had come from my 8 year old was screaming as her bed room was closest to the bathroom. The curved shower screen had exploded all over the bathroom and into the hall.
we had the rubber drip/edge protectors on the bottomm and the exposed edge had a buffer on it and had cleaned the glass with a non abrasive cloth since we bought it 3 years ago.It took myself and my husband over an hour to clear up the glass and have found deep groves and scratches on the bath and shampoo bottles that were in the bath at the time and am still shaken thinking that could have been one of my family. Also finding glass in the carpet in the hall and a horrid glass dust over surfaces that irritates and cuts the skin!
why dont we get an option to put a film or coating on especially when we have children i would have paid for the peace of mind. or even the warning and we would have chosen a different method to shield water from the floor.
not a happy customer :-(
My daughter's vase with a plant and a Betta fish in it broke in half on it's own today. I can see that others have had simular things happen. The common thread that I see from the other accounts is that the glass was either tempered glass, or it was a glass with a thick bottom. The vase had a thick bottom. The Betta fish is fine do to my granddaughters quick action. :)
Thirty minutes ago, I was working on my computer on the loft when I heard an explosion downstairs. I found the glass vessel sink in the guest bathroom had blown apart sending tempered glass particles six feet into the hall! There was also a popping noise in the bathroom. I'm glad I was home because I would have thought someone had broken into the house. I would never have believed this. Now after reading this web site, I am now worried about my glass showers!
Awesome! It's great to know that this has happened to other people. We just came back home from lunch and discovered the cat's IKEA water cup exploded with the water and glass spread all over the countertop that it sits on. The door was locked so no one could get into the room plus the cup wasn't moved, it was still in the same place...just spread around. I don't know if it was made out of tempered glass or not but it exploded none the less. Someone wrote on a different post: "Welcome to the natural world. Try the punch, it's made with randomness" : )
While listening to my stereo at moderate volume (approximately 82 decibels - yes, I use a decibel meter to monitor the volume of my stereo...), I heard a loud crash upstairs. The glass shower enclosure had exploded and was continuing to crack into smaller and smaller bit while staying intact. A window was open 6inches in the bathroom next to the side of the shower that cracked. The side of the enclosure with the door was all intact. Outside temperature was approximately 65 degrees. No one had been in the bathroom for over an hour. The glass enclosure is over 8 years old and has never been hit or pushed on. I had been out of town the previous week and had left my stereo on at moderately high volume. Even though the bathroom is upstairs and 50 feet away from the stereo, I wonder if the sound waves had weakened the glass over the previous week causing it to be prone to breakage, of if I had simply somehow found just the right frequency to induce a spontaneous fracture.
Ten minutes ago as I was working on my computer I heard a loud explosion (like a pile of plates dropped onto a concrete floor) in the next room a plate glass tabletop had exploded into literally thousands of tiny pieces, (creaking and cracking continued during the cleanup) some up to 1.5 metres away. The table was not subject to any load or unusual temperature.
So..... 10 min ago my husband and I were sitting and eating a quiet dinner when what felt/sounded like an implosion or concussion came from the other side of the house... We both felt it and rushed to investigate. The shower door had shattered with such force that it bent the aluminum casing. And continues to crackle and pop even as I write. Of course I immediately googled "shower door blow out" and found this site... The bathroom door was closed, no windows were open, no heaters were on, no change in temperature, no one else in the house, hadn't used the bathroom in the past few hours, no one has bumped the door that we know of... Just spontaneous implosion. It felt like a sonic boom. I can still feel it! Weird!
It happened in my vehicle's rear windshield as I just sat in the driver's seat. The rear windshield suddenly shattered into thousands of pieces. The dealer said this is not covered under warranty.
Thank you for all these stories. Random glass smashing has happened twice to us now... all rational explanations aside we were just about convinced there was some sort of ghost in the house or we were ommitting some weird vibrational energy. My husband, usually very sound of mind, even wondered if it were some sort of sign! About 6 months ago the entire roof of our beautiful campervan imploded one morning - absoloutely nothing around it to suggest it has been smashed... the thing was a right off. We wondered if there was a slight fault that had caused the rest of it to smash - perhaps due to a ressonance from the nearby train line?!? This morning we woke up to a loud crash and found the shower screen in tiny little pieces... our rental agency are never going to believe us! Only explanation we can come up with is heat expanding the glass in it's frame? Who knows!
This just happened to us, and it is the second time. A few years ago, a window in our Dodge Durango shattered in the frame for no reason. Just now the glass door on our sun porch did the same thing. It appears to be only one side, the other is intact. Weird and annoying, but at least it's not a hazard. We were able to remove the door without the shattered pieces falling from the frame.
On Nov. 25th I was in the kitchen frying a hamburger on the stove about 7 PM. All of a sudden I heard this loud "BANG" that sounded like a gunshot! I was listening to a book on my iPod via earbuds, but the bang was so loud that even with all the ambient noise I was completely startled and shrieked out loud. We looked around the house and found nothing amiss. 10 minutes later another loud report was heard - maybe just a little less loud than the first. Again, searched the house upstairs and down and nothing out of place. I thought it might have been a half a plastic bottle of club soda that was in the fridge. We squeeze the middle before we recap it to keep the bubbles in and sometimes it expands. The next morning, my husband took the tablecloth off our round, glass topped kitchen table and voila! There were two large cracks in a "V" shape in the glass top. It looks like the initial "POP" is about an inch from the edge with a large crack radiating inwardly about a foot and outwardly to the edge of the table. The other smaller crack radiates from that point as well for about 8 inches. The temperature has been normal for Florida, about 80 during the day and 60 deg. at night. The table sits in a window alcove and only gets direct sunlight in the early afternoon. The glass top is supported evenly by a circle of bamboo, so there are no stress points. We have owned this table for 15 years. It has gone through two moves and has been just fine until last Friday! Weird!
Tonight, 28th of November 2011.
Me, and my big family having japanese dinner which is located at bukit tinggi 2, Klang Malaysia. In my entire life I'd never seen this strange thing happen, there is a glasses with cold orange juice, After the order arrived 15min later. The glasses exploding itself and spread over the table on the food & drink. What should we do if swollen small piece of glass? Drink plenty of water or stop acting nothing. We haven't seek for doctor because doesn't pain.
About 2 hours ago I was watching tv with my boy friend, I had a beer glass half full with some coke witch was at room temperature sitting on the coffee table, as we watched the tv we herd a loud cracking/ pop sound we didn't no what it was nothing seemed to be broken then we thought it may have been our glass top coffee table cracking, so i started to clear the table to see if it was broken i picked up my glass of coke and as i did the top of the glass came away from the bottom and coke rushed out every where!!!!! It was strange for the bottom to brake way from the glass out if know where, must have been faulty i guess, but was funny is how the coke kept the two parts together till i lifted it and broke the air seal i wonder how long it would have lasted after it had broken if I didn't touch it, glad im not the only one random braking glass has happened to but mine didn't exploded just broke in two for no reason, the pieces are sitting in the sink who knows they still might explode latter, cool that odd stuff like this happens makes you really stop and think why and how and that there are just amazing things we didn't no could happen lol :D
After the other nights' sleep I had (29.11.11) I awoke in the morning remembering that some how a glass smashed, in the night besides my bed, in between my bedside cabinet. However, I do not recall how it got smashed only waking on hearing it break. When I examined it something was strange? It was scattered, like it exploded, but all the pieces were together in a pile. This glass was a normal drinking glass with a solid glass bottom about 1/3 inch thick. Even that part of the glass was shattered. What smashed that glass must of had force, but what baffles me is that all the pieces were in a pile, like someone had smashed it with an hammer and swept it in to a pile. For days now its be bothering me. Sometimes i take a table lighter to bed which weights about half a patatoe. So I did an experiment and drop it on another glassof the same, but the table lighter broke in the normal way and glass remained ok. Its really bugging me how it ended up smashed into tiny pieces.The only other things that were on my bed while sleeping were 2 remote controls. Everything that was on my bedside table was a cordless phone an ash tray which was empty and lamp made out of wicker. Can glass spontaniously explode?
I was drinking some soda out of a thick water glass I had all evening. I sat the glass down turned my back for 5 seconds or less and there was a loud explosion. I screamed and everyone hearing it ran to see what it was. Turned around the glass gone. There was tiny pieces of glass everywhere. All that was left was the completely shattered half of a thick base. When I touched it, it crumble into tiny pieces. I was really freaked out, mainly because my grandbaby had died a month ago and on the same day she died my son said he was holding a glass shelf at work and it exploded into tiny pieces getting on his face and hair. Luckily he was wearing glasses. He said he was still standing there with his handing out but the glass has disintegratedin his hands, Now I'm wondering if this is an omen for something bad to happen in the near future, hopely not my family. Because I had just left my grandbaby's room and for some reason I smelt her scent strongly. Then walked in my bedroom and set the glass down and it exploded.
I had just finished my pizza and took my last gulp of chocolate milk. I was sitting on my couch with the coke glass on a table just to my left at head hight when BANG!!!!!. I nearly died of shock,lol. The noise was so loud my ears were ringing when I was trying to work out what just happened. the base of the glass was in little cubes but the rest was in spiral shapes???. I immediately thaught it was paranormal as I had been watching a very emmotional documentary about a family lost in woods with no fuel in car, the chap never made it back but the women and kids were spotted by helicopter minutes before freezing to death. I took pictures as it was so weird then googled exploding glasses and ended up here. Peace. Mr pumpypants
Last night (or this morning at 1.02am) when I was watching tv I had an empty San Miguel pint glass in front of me without warning just exploded. None of the glass went near me just everywhere else. Also, the room suddenly went cold. That was prob. me shivering with fear. Then anger. Crazy. Pretty certain there are spirits in my flat. I see various movements in the corner of my eye. I live in a block of flats built on holy ground so it may be that. Could be nothing but who knows.....Mad. I want out...!
Yesterday as I was getting out of the shower and very carefully sliding the glass door open, the piece holding it in place pooped out and the door shattered into thousands of pieces. It made a huge noise and I was covered in glass. Luckily I received only one small cut, but I was shaken, as you can imagine. Unfortunately, my husband totally blames me and is still mad at me. He yelled at me and ran out of the house and when he came back he told me to call a handy-man to take care of it. never once did he check to see if I was o.k.
I feel reassured after reading all of the above comments.
I heard a shattering noise in the kitchen and like the other people went to investigate to find the drinking glass in pieces.
I then placed another glass from the same set only to find exactly the same thing happen several days later.
I must say both glasses were old and had not been used for many years.
I am reluctant to use any more glasses from the same set.
My sister had a similar experience some years ago that a vase that belonged to our mother exploded during the night.
It was not long after our mother died.
My sister was told it was my mother"Keeping in Touch".
All very hard to understand.
Same thing here. Last night I decided to have a long soak in the bath. Just opened door and switched light on, then nipped across back to bedroom for something. There was a huge BANG from the bathroom. I was scared to look but, when I plucked up courage, I could see the shower screen had shattered and...yes...the glass was still popping. Bizzare. I'm so glad I found this site.
We live in the UK so no high temperatures here.
I am happy for all this information which lets me know why my shower door just cracked. However, mine did not explode. Instead, when I entered the bathroom to fill a water bottle, I heard vague sounds. Thinking an insect of some type (we live in the woods) I stilled my head to listen...moved closer to the sound and then saw that the normally clear-glass shower door now looked just like "crackle glass" that I have used in stained glass projects. It continued to "crack" before my eyes into ever smaller pieces. Some areas of the door had holes where the glass actually fell out. Now I am concerned that any minute the whole panel will just fall out...or how the heck I can remove the door without the hundreds of little pieces falling out? So strange!
4:15 this morning the 3/8 inch glass plate that covered the base of our Phillips 42 inch flat screen TV exploded. It was so loud it woke us up and vibrated a guitar in the next room so hard it sounded like the guitar had fallen over. Fortunately no one was in the TV room...there are huge chunks of glass all over the floor. It was about 65 degrees in there -- nothing out of the ordinary -- it just exploded.
Similar story, but with a twist. we have a large luxury walk-in shower - when it exploded a short while back I had a special reason to be extra panicky
I was watching a late night movie, The Matrix, and the shoot up at the police headquarters scene had just got fully under way...
The sound was like a small aircraft hitting the house - and the ongoing "popping" sound was like water leaking from a burst pipe...
The glass is so heavy and filled 2 bin bags - I remember the guy installing it saying it couldn't be carried by one man...
so glad to find this site or I would really have been even more freaked out,
bad enough thinking world war three had just started overhead.
Glad to see I am not alone. I just had a glass cup break in the kitchen. It didn't shatter in fact it just cracked in half.
Wow. I've been reading others' stories about shattered glass and am discovering there are a lot of similar experiences. Our patio door shattered yesterday and the glass is still all attached in a beautiful pattern. There is a hole in the middle. We had horrific winds yesterday, and the inside pane of glass imploded. The outside pane is intact. I hope the insurance company is aware of such happenings. Thanks for sharing, everyone.
I had given my daughter a present of a well-known brand of casserole with glass lid. Before she had a chance to even put it away, it exploded into a thousand pieces, even into adjoining rooms. So lucky no one was in the vicinity.
I had a glass in my bedroom that shattered into millions of tiny pieces. There are tiny shards all over my bedding and I inhaled pieces too because they were so fine! I've never known it before.Small chunks and just shattered into tiny particles.
I came home to find my glass patio table shattered into a million pieces.
Last night I heard glass exploding in the kitchen. I thought a rock had been thrown through the window. I found the large thick glass bowl I had used to take a salad to a potluck shattered into a thousand pieces in the sink where it was waiting to be washed. It seemed strange and mysterious at the time.
Last night I was in the kitchen with the dogs and all of a sudden a very loud bang. Dogs went ballistic and I jumped up to see my plasma tv, sitting in an unusual position on the glass tv stand. The tv stand had literally exploded and the tv had actually dropped to the second shelf. The top shelf had disintegrated into millions of pieces.
That same thing happened to me today. Black stereo cabinet with a somewhat dark tinted glass door. I opened it to turn on my stereo, then closed the door, and it shattered. Glass everywhere! It happened in my basement so for it to fall on the concrete floor didn't help it any. I wish I would have got a picture. Anyway I started cleaning it up, and could hear the glass crackling on the ground. I have no idea what's up with that but it could be dangerous if someone had little kids with one of these. The people that gave me this cabinet had a 2 year old at the time.
Interesting theory i found on this web site.
Similar phenomenon happened to me. Came home to find the inner side of my double pane windows to be shattered into tiny little pieces on the floor. half of the glass panel still remains on the door. You can tell there are so many cracks to make up the tiny piece of glasses.
I was scared as I thought there was a break in.
Wow, guess I am not alone. Same thing happened to me tonight as well. I was sitting in the living room watching tv and I heard a big POP! I get up to investigate and I hear a crackling noise, so I follow it to see where it is coming from, my kitchen window, a large double paned window, is shattered and still cracking into smaller pieces, I can still hear it. So strange, just hoping it will stay intact until tomorrow. Not sure if it's from a defect in the glass or the triple digit heat we have been having this summer or what exactly. I am in Kansas city, MO.
Wow, guess I am not alone. Same thing happened to me tonight as well. I was sitting in the living room watching tv and I heard a big POP! I get up to investigate and I hear a crackling noise, so I follow it to see where it is coming from, my kitchen window, a large double paned window, is shattered and still cracking into smaller pieces, I can still hear it. So strange, just hoping it will stay intact until tomorrow. Not sure if it's from a defect in the glass or the triple digit heat we have been having this summer or what exactly. I am in Kansas city, MO.
I am so glad to see this website. I was sleeping this morning and around 7:45AM I heard a very loud noise like something heavy falling and slamming on the floor. It was so weird. I finally got up and investigated to find that my window in the dining room had broken and streaked up to the top in an arc like direction. At first I thought that someone outside had thrown a rock or something in the window. But actually it was broken from the inside out with a piece of glass fallen between the double pane. No damage to the outside screen. I still don't understand how it happened. I'm assuming that there was some kind of defect in the glass. Still it was quite unnerving.
Yesterday we heard what sounded like a huge window breaking only to learn that an empty drinking glass had a chunk broken off of it, smooth to the touch. Later that day a glass sitting in the kitchen sink "popped" and another "chunk" was broken off. While we were discussing this, my daughter had a glass she was drinking from crack from side to side! No temperature changes, all different styles of glass. No air-conditioning and no evident cracks previously. My question is WHY were three separate glasses in different locations all breaking?
4/25/2012 I went to oppen a set of glass sliding doors in our office, I touched the ring to slide the door, I heard a crackle from above, and the next thing I know I was covered in glass--small pieces were sticiking me all over. Because we had a film on the door, the door literally broke on my head. This was very scary and later quite painful. No one knows why the glass broke, but the company reinstalled the door. The one theory that was told to me, "Tempered glass is sensitive on the edges, if someone did not know how to open the doors, if they pressed too hard, one panel might have hit the other and cracked the glass. Just when I touched the glass, it just broke due to the prior pressure.