Safety Sliding Glass Door Shattered

It takes a serious impact to break and when it does it shatters into small granular chunks instead of large shards.

Safety sliding glass door shattered. A rock launched by a lawnmower just shattered the glass on our andersen brand sliding patio door. Poor edge quality there are many potential causes for spontaneous breakage of tempered glass. Delta shower doors are made with tempered glass much like the glass used in automobiles and airplanes. One rather common cause of tempered spontaneous breakage is known as a nickel sulfide inclusion.

I think we have the details for the contractor that installed the doors 15 years ago and will give them a call to discuss repairs. Although tempered glass in general is stronger than non tempered glass especially when it comes to direct impacts to the face of the glass it can still break. Recently manufacturers of patio and sliding glass doors started using tempered glass in their products. The glass is designed with safety in mind.

Spontaneous breakage is a relatively well known in the glass industry but somewhat rare phenomenon associated with tempered safety glass. By design tempered glass completely shatters into thousands of small pieces when stressed beyond its capacity and serves as a safety feature which helps avoid more serious injuries from the larger sharper shards often seen in the non tempered glass. However patio glass doors are not invincible and can shatter in high winds or if they are struck with a hard object.