Hot take: a retired firefighter told me 'your tempered glass is a bigger hazard than the fire' when it shatters wrong.

He was talking about a 2018 warehouse job where the exit door glass exploded into giant, knife-like chunks instead of safe little pieces, and now I double-check every tempering oven's quench pressure.

2 comments

2 Comments

jesse_burns817d ago

That point about the factory process is spot on. I read an article once that said if the glass cools too fast or unevenly in that oven, it builds up weird stress points. Then instead of crumbling, it just lets go in these huge, jagged sheets. They called it a "spontaneous breakage" problem, and it's why some buildings have had to replace whole walls of glass years later.

charlie26917d ago

That's actually terrifying. Giant knife-like chunks from a door that's supposed to be safe? Makes you wonder how often that tempering process gets messed up in a factory. Now I'm gonna be side-eyeing every glass door I walk through, not just the exit signs. That retired guy probably saw some stuff.