Why I’ll never have a glass door in the bathroom, again
It was midnight in Mexico, my partner and I couldn’t sleep so we were talking in bed while all of a sudden BANG and loud long shattering noise. Firstly, I thought it was someone who had attacked our window for whatever reason. It didn’t sound like a bird hitting the window, well, perhaps a 6 foot fruit bat. It sounded more like a moose went through the wall. Then, after silence, I thought someone jumped off the roof and committed suicide. Regardless what it was–this was serious & someone could have gotten hurt.
I hesitantly went looking throughout the house. I checked our bedroom window (no bat or moose…), both sides of the house, all the kitchen windows, the doors. Nothing. It was a weird moment of “am I dreaming?”.
Finally, I saw a glitter of moonlight from underneath the door. There was glass underneath the door–but, nobody was in the bathroom… I tried to open the door but there was so much glass the door absolutely wouldn’t budge open. It took 5 minutes or so to be able to pry the door open to find out that our glass shower door absolutely exploded!
Judging by how much glass was over by the door, to illustrate the word “exploded” think like a grenade. Shrapnel of glass that covered the entire bathroom. All the ledges, which were well over 6 feet high had glass, inside the sink, by the door (8 feet away or so) was covered.
So around midnight, on a clear night, with no one in the bathroom, we hear a spine-rattling explosion coming from the bathroom. What the hell happened?
La Fantasma (The Ghost)
I’d like to tell you that this turns into a ghost story, and honestly it sure felt like it that night. A ghost or not, we learned the aethestics of your dream bathroom with a glass door come with a cost–shattering glass without any warning at all.
This was all very scary as you can imagine. Not only did the door explode, the entire glass door was no-more. So, we took to the internet to find out what went on…
Turns out that there are countless news stories all throughout the United States of this occurring, with many telling the tale whilst bleeding from their head. An average of 50 people go into emergency every year from these exploded glass doors. Many building inspectors and glass companies have been interviewed have also said that it’s more common that people believe for bath doors to shatter entirely. What’s more, is that this risk is not clearly outlined in brochures of glass manufacturers, installation contracts or by home renovation companies.
Most cases happen random, simply opening the door, sliding it, holding onto it briefly for balance, or applying no pressure/provocation at all, but upon doing some searching some reports are always hold some things in common:
1)The glass simply didn’t crack, it exploded. It did not crack into little bits when landing against the floor, or have the door hold some shape. The shower panels didn’t fall out of frame, or door brackets coming loose to cause the misplaced door to fall. They were thought to have shattered from the centre, randomly. In our case, The large door was completely gone.
2) The explosion was spontaneously. All the reports happened when someone was in some other area of the house or at least not applying any significant pressure. In our case, we were in bed in the other room entirely.
3) The most odd thing I read is a majority of these reported cases are between 12-3AM and wake up the owners (ours was 12:18AM). Ghosts wait until dark apparently. My partner now jokes, “If you’re going to shower tonight, do it before 12AM”
Take Away
I was told by two plumbers/tradesman that this was due to poor installation or it was improper tempered glass where there were impurities that were biding their time under the heat/cold just waiting to explode. “That must have made quite the noise” one remarked, showing he knew the capacity of destruction.
Admittedly, this is still a rare occurrence, but my partner and I are turned off glass doors for the shower due to its shocking prevalent risk. Glass doors are not cheap, you don’t know if you’re getting a good installation (since these cracks may be invisible to the eye) and aesthetically, if you have the space, I think walk-in showers with some nice tiling look nicer. (+) if anything does happen, it’s a bitch to clean up!
We thought while perhaps not lethal, anyone in the bathroom would have 100% been injured. Seemingly nothing set off this explosion and we were sorry to read that we were not the only victims of this (though, I hope you laugh at the meme below).
This was me at 12:30 AM
Now…here are some more stories!
#StayOnTheBall
