On Thu, 22 May 2014 18:49:05 +0100
ChrisK wrote:

Davey wrote:
On Thu, 22 May 2014 10:04:59 +0100
Dave Chapman wrote:

Hi all,

We purchased an add-on conservatory from one of the large UK
suppliers about four years ago and since then we have really
enjoyed all of the benefits of a warm bright place to sit and
relax even when the weather outside is far from ideal.

However, our enjoyment has not been without its downside since
one morning about 18 months ago when we went into the conservatory
we noticed that the inner glass of one of the many double-glazed
panels had shattered into 'a million' pieces for no obvious reason.

snip

I'd be very interested to hear the comments of anyone else in
this NG who have experienced similar spontaneous shattering of
double-glazed panels and how the suppliers of the faulty panels
have reacted.

ATB - Dave.



A few months ago, I was parking my car, with witnesses, and the rear
window, an openable panel in an estate car tailgate, spontaneously
shattered. There was nothing anybody could see that could have
caused it.
Insurance replaced it for me.


This is a well known issue, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_glass_breakage

I've had a car window do this after 10 years, the panel stayed
together though and the inclusion that initiated the breakage was
still visible (happened on a sudden frosty night).

Also, I've seen it happen to thick architectural glass panels in a
high profile building. Seem to be the luck of the draw - possibly a
bad batch of glass in this case.

Chris K



Interesting. I can't say which, if any, of those was the cause of mine.
The car is several years old, but it was in winter, although not in a
particular cold spell.
Whatever.

A colleague of mine in the US once had a similar event while crossing
the high bridge where the Interstate crosses the Rouge River outside
Detroit, but the cause was a large piece of metal that came in through
the back window, and landed behind his passenger seat. The puzzle was
how it got there at all, he was high above ground level, and there were
no lorries anywhere near him at the time.

--
Davey.