Glass dining table shattered

[Lukeyson]

So Friday night, the wife and i were watching a movie (our kitchen, dining, lounge are all in one open plan room) and we heard this amazingly loud crash and smash, at first i thought someone had crashed through the front of the house. As i jumped up i saw our glass dining table had shattered/exploded and shot glass everywhere, there was even glass embedded in the wall.



Luckily, the kids were in bed so no one was hurt. Appart from our timber floor getting scratched to buggery.

We bought it a bit over 2 years ago (receipt shows 1 year wty ofcourse. lol) and had not really considered this as an issue, but since asking friends alot of them have had it happen.

Just keep this in mind if you are looking to buy a glass top table fellow AFF peeps

[poppa smurf]

quite a regular happening apparently......something to do with the factory glass tempering

very prevalent in cheaper Chinese out door furniture

[duaned]

That clean up looks like a lot of work! Sorry to hear!

[buggo]

Wow far out mate that's terrible. I guess on the bright side it's a good thing it didn't happen while you and your family were eating dinner.
And it's lucky you have floor boards, if you had carpet I'd say you'd have to rip it out and replace it. It'd be impossible to pick all the little fragments out and cut feet 5 years on are almost guaranteed.

[Jim Goose]

As much as I hate to say it (admitting I watched ACA)... there was a story about this on ACA last yr.. (sometimes boredom makes you watch these shows).

Some of the problem appears to be that the edges of the glass arent protected... if you hit the glass on the egde it explodes... hit it on the flat and it breaks into large pieces.

Plus like was said... cheap glass which doesnt meet any australian standards.

[TC200six]

Yes this isn't unusual for a tempered glass table to explode without warning. An Ikea table in my house shattered last year after a hot day.

Some brands are worse than others, in America there was a brand called Martha Stewart that went bankrupt because their tempered glass tables were very prone to shattering.

Quite frankly, I would never buy a glass table.

[Phil B]

Originally Posted by Lukeyson

As i jumped up i saw our glass dining table had shattered/exploded and shot glass everywhere, there was even glass embedded in the wall.

Wow that's crazy. Very lucky no one was near the table.

My grandparents had some glasses that they got as a wedding present, I saw them get knocked off tables and always bounce. Then a few years ago (when the glasses were around 50 years old) they all exploded within a few weeks for no reason! Glass is crazy stuff...

[Lukeyson]

Yeah was no doubt it was some cheap chinese stuff, got it from Super A Mart. lol.

Clean up took about 2.5 hours. Awesome Friday night fun.

[MWTB]

I work at a discount furniture place, one of the biggest in Australia next to Ikea. I have seen the glass shatter from the tiniest of taps to the corner. It's **** glass and I'd be staying well away.

[AU Mont]

ouch !! regardless i absolutely despise any glass furniture

[I reckon]

Ouch! lucky you wernt up to a bit of hanky spanky with the missus! could have had some explaing to do .

[In Focus]

Sheesh! What will we do if the Chinese start making cheap AND well made stuff?

[Resurrection]

You get what you pay for.

[xisled]

If you have contents insurance and a low excess make a claim for glass breakage. Your policy may cover it. Might even cover the scratches in the floor.

[79FordEsky]

We have a timber table with a glass top and it is over 80 years old.

[ford71V8]

Wow, Dangerous. I never knew this was a common problem.

Could have been a much worse story

[b0son]

Dont let the 1 year warranty stop you. You can still try and claim under your statutory warranty rights - contact Fair Trading. Furniture should last longer than 1 year, regardless of the warranty the seller chooses to offer.

[Danny]

We have a 10 YO 3m x 3m Glass table.

Now I'm shtting bricks..

[Cheese3]

Geez i just bought a new matching furniture for my house 3 weeks ago, glass top coffee table, tv unit and dining table . . . now you have me worried . . .

[TC200six]

Originally Posted by 79FordEsky

We have a timber table with a glass top and it is over 80 years old.

Is it tempered glass though?

[XR6_661]

You probably dropped your guts at the same resonant (sp?) frequency as the glass.

[jpblue1000]

Glass is a tricky material to get right, and unfortunately many manufacturers dont know what they are doing, especially in some parts of the world infamouse for reverse engineering
I did an inspection of a UK project who's floors were all laminated glass panels. each panel was made up 3 sheets laminated together, they were not sourced in europe and have been nothing but trouble. Firstly the etching to prevent looking up dresses was done to an inside face, when glued the etching became transparent enough. the slip resistance etching to the top face was replaced with dotts drilled through the top sheet and back filled with polyester, the top sheet was toughened and didnt take well to the drilling, each panel is identified with and has a kitemark (manufacturers compliance mark) after an internal sheet in 3 panels out of over 100 shattered an investigation was started. a stone on a shoe broke one? a screwdriver from a tradies pocket another and a trolley wheel on an unprotected edge the other. the investigation surveyed every panel and discovered the kite mark to be either wrong or false...every panel will be replaced over a 6 month period at an astronomical cost...to everyone. so the 50% saving offered has actually a 1000% cost to all. even if the 'manufacturer' is aware of standards and the kitemark suggest it complied a survey identified they lied, and put lives at risk. The upshot is glass is tricky at the best of times, latent most of the time but the internal stresses only need a certain set of conditions to fail.
JP

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by Cheese3

Geez i just bought a new matching furniture for my house 3 weeks ago, glass top coffee table, tv unit and dining table . . . now you have me worried . . .

Same here...we just bought a TV stand in black glass from JB HiFi. It does have warnings on a sticker about not letting kids climb on it and not striking the edges...just the usual precautions when dealing with tempered glass though.

[hawkgirl]

not just the tempered glass in furniture fails without warning.

I know a guy who was doing the wiping up, wife handed him a pyrex dish which promptly disintegrated & slashed his forearm to the bone - still has nerve damage issues in his hand 5 years later.

The moral of the story, of course, is that washing & wiping dishes is dangerous & best avoided at all costs.

[XR6_661]

Originally Posted by hawkgirl

The moral of the story, of course, is that washing & wiping dishes is dangerous & best avoided at all costs.

Solid advice.

[GREGL]

While i love the look of a glass top table having had a Janda? cane setting for years i would not trust the latest built to a price stuff , and for anyone that has kids/teenagers or later maturing adults like i was, definatly best avoided. Could drink beer all day but two glasses of saki and one glass coffee table didn't mix, eating dinner all good stand up whoa A over T arm staight thru. To add insult to injury the bloody landlords hit me up for the table. Never touched saki again wicked stuff!

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by hawkgirl

not just the tempered glass in furniture fails without warning.

I know a guy who was doing the wiping up, wife handed him a pyrex dish which promptly disintegrated & slashed his forearm to the bone - still has nerve damage issues in his hand 5 years later.

The moral of the story, of course, is that washing & wiping dishes is dangerous & best avoided at all costs.

Pyrex you say?

I did the dishes prior to our 1 week trip to QLD. Left the Pyrex dish on the back corner of the stove to dry.

Get back in the late evening and can't be bothered to go out for dinner or cook up a storm, so I knock up a feast I was well adjusted to from my backpacker days... 2 minute noodles...

Turn on the stove, get everything started and pour the Mrs a glass of water. Would have left the kitchen all of 20 seconds when we hear a small 'explosion'....

Return to find this:



Removed the pot, double checked to make sure the back element was off (it was).. then the dish continued to fall appart before our eyes:



A quick google search found that this was actually a common event. Apparently a few years ago they fiddled around with the glass formula. The web is littered with pictures similar to mine.

Myer were good about it, it was over 2 years old and was on our registry, therefor no actual receipt and they delete registry accounts over 12 months old.

She did ask a bunch of questions trying to find a problem in my usage. Was it in the fridge just prior? No, Was it wet? No, was it dropped recently? No, Did you boil water in it on the stove? Etc etc etc.

They eventually agreed to swap it over with one on the shelf.

She said the biggest killers for these dishes is quick temp changes. I collected the pieces as soon as the pics were taken and they were perhaps 2-5 degrees warmer on the pot side - if that!

[2011G6E]

I've done that exact same thing with a stoneware dinner plate that I accidentally left sitting on a small hotplate on our stove top and didn't notice I had turned the wrong hotplate on..the one underneath the plate...it went off like a hand grenade.
It's not really anything to do with the formulation of the glass (or stoneware)...it's because the center of the object is sitting on the source of heat, and tries to expand first, while the surrounding material is still cool. It can't expand, the material reaches it's structural limits, and explodes.

[G6ET8U]

Funnily enough I was having this conversation with a glazier on my site this morning. I work in commercial construction.

This particular glazier has been in the industry for 25 years. Since the glass now comes from China, at a 1/4 of the price of local stuff any loss, be it breakage in transit etc can now be accounted for with $ left over. Such a shame.

One thing he mentioned was that Chinese glass, when cut to fit makes a completely different sound to 'local' glass.

Jack

[Falconson71]

Bugger Me!! Wouldnt have wanted to be sitting down when that happened!