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Exploding IKEA Glassware

James_H

And I like to roam the land
Joined
May 18, 2002
Messages
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I spoke to a colleague yesterday who had a spooky story about a glass spontaneously shattering on her kitchen shelf, when she was a good distance from it. Was it a poltergeist? No, she did some research online and apparently it's fairly common with some glasses from IKEA.

And the tables blow up too!

I wonder if this phenomenon has ever led to anyone believing their house was haunted?
 
Many years ago we had a glass measuring jug, it was washed and put on the sink ready to go in the dishwasher, i was standing about 4-5 feet from it when it suddenly blew up and flew across the kitchen, it made me jump, but fortunately it did not hit me, i went over to look at the debri and it was like little tiny squares, bit like when a windscreen shatters
 
Many years ago we had a glass measuring jug, it was washed and put on the sink ready to go in the dishwasher, i was standing about 4-5 feet from it when it suddenly blew up and flew across the kitchen, it made me jump, but fortunately it did not hit me, i went over to look at the debri and it was like little tiny squares, bit like when a windscreen shatters
The little squares means it was made of tempered glass. As far as I understand it from the link above, glass may spontaneously crack at any time due to flaws and temperature changes. But the way tempered glass is structured means that if it breaks at all, the whole object breaks, leading to such dramatic 'explosions'.
 
Tempered glass is deliberately manipulated so as to induce internal compressions that (if balanced) give the overall mass a higher strength than ordinary glass. In effect, the internal structure of tempered glass is under stress. Anything that destabilizes this network of counteracting stresses / tensions / compressions can cause the whole thing to disintegrate.

For example, a nick or other damage along an exposed edge can easily destabilize the glass to the point a minor shock (including thermal shock or gradients) can cause it to crumble like a house of cards.

See Also:

Mysteriously Exploding Or Disintegrating Glass Objects
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...loding-or-disintegrating-glass-objects.22741/
 
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During a tense moment, on the eve of my driving test, when the car was stationary, the driver's side window shattered violently. My instructor, always given to panic, dived under the dashboard, convinced someone was shooting at us! Luckily, on a warm summer's day, the window was wound down to shoulder-height and the pieces fell mainly into the door itself, some onto the floor of the car.

Maybe it was a harbinger of bad news: the test that afternoon was cancelled, due to heavy traffic on the route! :frust:
 
I had a pyrex dish explode in the oven, I'll try and find the pic. It's not uncommon.
I had an Ikea bottle blow yesterday! It was very much explicable: I was pouring in water that was a bit too hot. There was a loud bang and a roughly circular bit of glass about an inch across came flying out: the rest stayed intact.
 
I had a pyrex dish explode in the oven
Ask for your money back. It's not supposed to do that unless you're stupid enough to put it on the stove like I did—once—when I was a teenager.
 
I've had a glass of whisky crack in my hand in a pub years ago. I think that the glass had just come out of the wash and was still warm and the whisky was cool.
 
We had a whole set of IKEA tumblers break within about a week of getting them; just a rubbish batch, it would seem. Two broke in the sink while being washed, another in the cupboard, and the last one cracked because I had the temerity to pour water into it.

Next time we were in the store, we noticed that the design (marked 'New' a scant few weeks before) seemed to have been removed from display, so I suspect we weren't the only ones to experience the total loss.

Mrs Q had a Pyrex butter dish shatter unexpectedly one day; it was alarming but, as others have mentioned, not that uncommon. Made quite a bang.
 
We had a whole set of IKEA tumblers break within about a week of getting them; just a rubbish batch, it would seem. Two broke in the sink while being washed, another in the cupboard, and the last one cracked because I had the temerity to pour water into it.

Next time we were in the store, we noticed that the design (marked 'New' a scant few weeks before) seemed to have been removed from display, so I suspect we weren't the only ones to experience the total loss.

Mrs Q had a Pyrex butter dish shatter unexpectedly one day; it was alarming but, as others have mentioned, not that uncommon. Made quite a bang.

That explains the legendary absence of staff in IKEA outlets: they are done away with immediately on being hired, and their angry, unquiet spirits incorporated into IKEA stock items.

Occasionally, when the stars/ducks align, they manage to break free...

maximus otter
 
A friend of mine came round to a flat, i was sharing with a friend, one day and decided to cook us some dinner, a few minutes after he started there was a loud band and we (my flat mate and i) rushed in to the kitchen to see my fried standing in shock with the mince he was browning in a pyrex dish on the hob! Scattered about the kitchen lol
 
A friend of mine came round to a flat, i was sharing with a friend, one day and decided to cook us some dinner, a few minutes after he started there was a loud band and we (my flat mate and i) rushed in to the kitchen to see my fried standing in shock with the mince he was browning in a pyrex dish on the hob! Scattered about the kitchen lol
He was heating the Pyrex directly on the hob? There's your problem then.
 
I had a wine glass shatter a few years ago, entirely predictable but I was too slow. It was a freezing winter's day, I washed the wine glass in hot water and put it on the draining board, and then opened the upper window... The cold air rolled in (visibly) and as soon as it touched the wine glass, the inevitable happened...
 
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