How Could This Happen???

[jtesta1]

Maybe Santa chipped it last Christmas

[Teamfour]

Damn China bomb fireplaces.

[johng4706]

Tempered glass, generally tinted, can spontaneously break. Usually the glass is in an exterior position on a building elevation exposed to sunlight. There is a defect sometimes built into the glass and it's called a nickel sulfide inclusion. It starts off as a tiny flaw but when exposed to sunlight the nickel sulfide inclusion grows until the stress created causes the glass to explode. Sometimes, if the glass remains in the frame you'll see a radial fracture pattern. The nickel sulfide inclusion is at the bullseye and can be seen with a microscope.

Also, the glass generally used for the fronts of residential fireplaces isn't glass but a ceramic that can handle high temperatures.

[dmchapman]

We had a similar explosion of a tempered glass table top on the patio at home. It had withstood years of use and standing in the weather but one fine day it just let go. Fortunately DW and fur babies were indoors at the time.

[Oakman]

The brand of our fireplace is Tec Flame and I was looking through the small manual that came with the fireplace for contact information and found none. As I was reading though the manual I came across this sentence amid a couple of paragraphs under the heading After Sales Service. “Should you require after sales service you should contact our customer service help desk on xxx xxx xxx.” Yep, a bunch of X’s instead of a number. Ya gotta love the RV industry.

[wmtire]

Evidently this happens, and is probably something all members should be aware of, either for their RV or home products.

An ABC news affiliate did a report on this last year, and it's a pretty good video to watch for educational purposes. The experts/manufacturers state that a defect in the glass can take years to show. (well after a warranty has expired I'm sure)

Experts explain when, why tempered glass can randomly explode - ABC2News.com

Thanks Oakman, for sharing.

[gfarmcafe]

One of our favorite campgrounds when visiting family in Columbia. Only downside is not having fire rings, so you're out of luck if you want a fire. Good luck in getting it replaced!

[GOTTOYS]

Originally Posted by Rugged Brown

Without a doubt, it's caused by the wind baffling down the chimney...

Hee-hee..that's good one. Every electric fireplace must have a chimney. Maybe it got bumped by Santa on a practice run..

[Iwannacamp]

I think this will get you started. I consider myself a pretty good googler. I often have to search for odd and old stuff at work...this was a bit tuff...almost like they didn't want to be found.




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[Sc00ter]

Severe temp extremes can also cause tempered glass to shatter. Picked up a window that was extremely cold with my bare hands. The warmth from my skin caused the break.

[slipf18]

Easy....just like all the rest of the cheap Chinese crap that is in our campers, the same holds true for the glass they use. I am a glass artist and have a lifetime of experience with kiln fired glass. The glass most of these companies use is simply scrap glass of different kinds from multiple sources. All glass has what is termed a "coefficient of expansion". Simply put, different glass expands and contracts at different rates when being fired in a kiln. If you don't work with a batch of glass that all has the same COE, stress will be left in the final product. This stress will eventually result in the glass "popping" (fracturing). It doesn't matter whether you jostle the glass or keep it absolutely immobile. At a microscopic level the glass is moving along the stress lines....think of it as a mini San Andeas fault line....and sooner or later the piece will shatter. It's not your fault or anything that you did or didn't do....the blame lies with these companies that use inferior materials and processes. It's the glass equivalent of those China Bomb tires. The RV industry needs to take a good hard look at itself....and we as consumers need to start educating ourselves and demand higher quality.

[nomad297]

Originally Posted by slipf18

Easy....just like all the rest of the cheap Chinese crap that is in our campers, the same holds true for the glass they use. I am a glass artist and have a lifetime of experience with kiln fired glass. The glass most of these companies use is simply scrap glass of different kinds from multiple sources. All glass has what is termed a "coefficient of expansion". Simply put, different glass expands and contracts at different rates when being fired in a kiln. If you don't work with a batch of glass that all has the same COE, stress will be left in the final product. This stress will eventually result in the glass "popping" (fracturing). It doesn't matter whether you jostle the glass or keep it absolutely immobile. At a microscopic level the glass is moving along the stress lines....think of it as a mini San Andeas fault line....and sooner or later the piece will shatter. It's not your fault or anything that you did or didn't do....the blame lies with these companies that use inferior materials and processes. It's the glass equivalent of those China Bomb tires. The RV industry needs to take a good hard look at itself....and we as consumers need to start educating ourselves and demand higher quality.

Would this be the case with most recycled glass?

Bruce

[johng4706]

One of the worst offenders was PPG an American company. The nickel sulfide I referred to in previous post came from the equipment used in manufacturing float glass.

Once the float glass is cut it can be tempered. If you use a pair of polarized sunglasses, you can see the stress patterns created when glass is tempered. Look at the glass in your automobiles doors or the rear window glass. There are no stress patterns in your front windshield because the front window is laminated annealed glass.

BTW, the weakest part of tempered glass is about a 1/2" around the perimeter. The perimeter loses the heat from the tempering oven faster than the field. The stress is trapped in the field creating the tempered safety glass.