S’pore family’s tempered glass door shatters to pieces; contractor says material isn’t shatter-proof

Singapore – A family in Singapore went through a troubling experience after their tempered glass sliding door shattered suddenly during the last day of Chinese New Year.

On Thursday (March 4), one Eldora Lie took to Facebook to share the footage from their home closed-circuit television camera.

“Our home sliding glass door just ‘bomb’ and shattered into pieces,” wrote Ms Lie. According to the timestamp, the incident happened on Feb 26 at about 4:03 pm.

The camera was able to capture the moment when Ms Lie’s husband, Mr Sito Rong Feng, walked past the door before it shattered.

“Thankfully that our boys and the adults were not caught at the incident,” Ms Lie noted. She told mothership.sg that she was in the living room with her 15-month-old twins when the incident happened.

In a follow-up comment, Mr Sito noted that they filled up four pails, cleaning shards of tempered glass, ranging from huge pieces to powdery bits.

Ms Lie went back to the contractor who installed the glass door over two years ago to ask why it shattered. The contractor replied, “Tempered glass means safety glass, and it does not mean that it would not shatter; it will break into cubes compared to those sharp pointy glass.”

“Come on, it’s still the same, in cubes also sharp what,” said Ms Lie. She noted that they hurt themselves while trying to sweep and clean the area.

Commenting on her Facebook post, one Jaeden Ng said the glass could have shattered “due to change in air-con room temperature and the wall temperature”. “I guess you have appliances behind the wall?” he added.

Thermal fracturing in glass occurs when there is a sufficient change in temperature. As a warmed area expands while a cooled area contracts, the glass receives stress forces which could cause it to fracture.

Tempered glass, however, seldom shatters as the glass has been processed to increase its strength compared to normal glass. But it could shatter due to variations in the manufacturing process./TISG

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