That was a shock - Tempered glass explosion

So some maple syrup got spilled on the bottom shelf of our fridge. that's the larges shelf on top of the veggie draws so it's the full width of the fridge. I removed everything and lifted it out. I stepped back from the fridge with it in two hands, it's already out of the fridge, it's touching nothing except my hands and it just exploded. Freaked me out, went with quite a bang. One moment I'm stepping back from the fridge with it in my hands and the next I've got 10,000 shards of glass dancing all over the floor and every surface in the room, including me. Even 10 minuets later bits of glass were popping and jumping on the floor like jumping beans as tension continued to be release I guess. I can't believe the distance or hight bits of it reached. It's taken me well over an hour to clean up and I'm sure I'm still going to be finding shards for days to come.

The wife has just hung up on LG to complain and get a new part. I really don't think we should pay for it, nothing was wrong with it at all, the fridge is right around 2 years old.

going from the cold fridge to the warm room? That is all I can think of

Thermal dynamics is a bitch! Your 98.6 degree hands on a few small spots of 34 degree glass made it break.

Yeah, that is fun. About 5 years ago I had a 3'x4' pane let go at work. Glass went over 40' away and around multiple corners. How close to your fridge to any carpet? good luck with the cleanup.

Javelin wrote: Thermal dynamics is a bitch! Your 98.6 degree hands on a few small spots of 34 degree glass made it break.

Sounds plausible.

That's some bad tempered glass....

Sorry, I'll how myself the door now.

Sounds defective, especially by the "still coming apart 10 minutes later" bit.

BrokenYugo wrote: Sounds defective, especially by the "still coming apart 10 minutes later" bit.

The 10 minutes thing is normal. Tempered glass is cooled unevenly to deliberately introduce stress into it. so that when it breaks it makes lots of little chunks rather than big jagged shards.

Some interesting slow-motion video of it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i5rycLJ3D8

In reply to codrus:

Right, but of the few car windows I've broken, I've never noticed one keep cracking after the initial hit. Like maybe they over stressed the piece of glass in question when it was made, too much internal stress. It seems that Adrian exposed it to relatively little thermal stress compared to say, a car defroster.

I'll add that to the list of weird things breaking on Korean appliances. weird thing is I've pulled countless glass shelves out of refrigerators and freezers that were super cold, with bare hands, and set them on counters at room temperature. Never once saw them break. Is it possible it could've had a small chip in it somewhere to act as the initial weak spot?

In reply to Rufledt:

Also plausible. The spilled syrup on it could have also had unforeseen effects.

the shelf in my fridge is plastic. No thermal dynamics to worry about.

GE fridge. Age uncertain.

Jeez ... I have taken the cold tempered glass shelves out of my fridge to clean them many times, never had an issue. If I remember next time, I think I will wear gloves just in case.

Wtf happened to good old fashioned metal racks?

Also, ever seen a beer bottle pressurized to 40 psi explode? I took a chest full of glass, and it got clear across the brewery a couple hundred feet away. Impressive.

I'm sure there were no nicks in it, but I'll never know.

I assume there was some manufacturing flaw that finally gave.

Thankfully no carpet in the next room. Still a big big clean up though. Several rugs have gone in the wash after being thoroughly shaken out first.

I hope for a free replacement from LG

A friend of mine tried to cut a piece of tempered window glass once. Conventional glass cutting was useless. Score it, put it over a ledge, stand on the other side, nothing. It literally just bent and sprung back. He tried a tile saw. The instant the saw blade lightly touched the glass, it exploded as your piece did, saturating his garage. He'll be finding glass for years.

I came in here expecting the huge panel leaning on your garage broke. What happened with that anyway?

Gearheadotaku wrote: I came in here expecting the huge panel leaning on your garage broke. What happened with that anyway?

Right where we left it

just today, like 3 hours ago, i took every panel out of my fridge and rinsed them down with scalding hot water out of the sprayer at the sink. no issues, i call shenanigans!

-J0N

I work with tempered glass on a almost daily basis. Sometimes it just shatters for no good reason. I've broken a lot of glass over the last 20 years. Nothing makes a bigger mess than tempered. It goes everywhere. The last one I broke was a 32" X 72" door glass. I just barely touched the bumper of my truck with one corner. It covered most of a hotel parking lot with tiny chunks of glass. I've also had one explode in the warehouse all by it self. No one was within 50' of it. On the other hand, I've also hit one with a ball peen hammer and just had the hammer bounce.

Welcome to the world of glass.