Rant: A big custom shower panel cracked on me during install yesterday

It was a 72 by 48 inch piece of 3/4 inch thick clear tempered glass for a high end bathroom job. I had it perfectly set in the channel, everything looked good, and then I heard that awful pop sound when I was just starting to tighten the final clamp. Now I'm stuck between two ways of thinking. One side says it was a flaw in the glass itself, maybe from the tempering process, and nothing I did would have stopped it. The other side says maybe my pad on the clamp was worn down and I put pressure on a bad spot. What's your take on sudden cracks during a routine install? Ever had one you're sure wasn't your fault?

2 comments

2 Comments

linda33520d ago

Oh man, my buddy had a huge shower door just shatter in his hands before it even left the crate! He swears it was a hidden stress point from the factory, because he hadn't even touched it with a tool yet. Sometimes that glass is just waiting to go.

jason_stone20d ago

Tempered glass has a weird way of holding onto stress. A friend's oven door exploded at midnight, just sitting there cold. The pop was so loud we thought someone shot out a window. It left a perfect spiderweb pattern without a single piece falling out.