Exploding Toughened Glass, Stegbar Window

Last night I had my kitchen window spontaneously explode! I was standing right next to it, luckily with my back to it, next I heard what sounded like an electrical appliance blow up, I turn around and see the window all shattered and very small fragments of glass over my benchtop and my kids dinner that I was preparing.

Stegbar offer a 3 year warranty on toughened glass, which is good as the house is only 2.5 years old. But of course there is a gotcha, they need to inspect it and organise any replacement. To me this makes the warranty next to useless if the window happens to explode outside of business hours! Which mine did by a full 30 minutes. What was I expected to do, leave the window as is and hope a big wind doesn't blow what is left of it in. Great with young children. Grrr. No I did the logical thing which is get a glazier out to replace it, $430 for standard glass later which of course is not reimbursable and Stegbar don't have an after hours number.

Just hope none of the other toughened windows in the house decide it is time to explode. Or if they do they do it in the next 6 months!

Did you contact Stegbar?

Yeah. Basically told too bad so sad because I made my house safe before they could see it.

In someways I can understand why, but as per my vent it happened at 6pm when they are closed. So a bit hard to leave it like this until the next business day to call and then wait god knows how long for someone to be available to come and have a look.

It is rather frustrating because nothing hit the window what so ever. That side of the house is isolated from the street by a 6 foot high fence and the neighbours are higher again with a 6 foot high fence. Only thing I can think of is heat triggered it because it was rather sunny yesterday evening and that side is facing west. That said heat along shouldn’t trigger it so maybe some flaw that’s been waiting.

The glazier who replaced the window said it started in the bottom right corner about 5cm in and up but couldn’t see why b

I think they are within their rights, but unreasonable. If there was no impact then it is caused by sulphide inclusions, and they know that well. When the glass broke, you can tell by the epicentre of the break whether it was sulphide inclusions. If it happens again, take a shot close up of what appears to be the centre.

If you take this to VCAT, I am sure you will win.

Thanks for the reponse. Out of interest if it did happen again what would be the tell tail sign?

Whilst not shown in my picture, the break started about 5-10cm in and up from the right hand corner and the centre appeared to be oval in shape. There was no discoouration or impact mark.

This is the typical pattern of a sulphide inclusion damage...

Would say that is about how it looked. I didn’t actually see the pattern until the glazier pointed it out, by which time he had already covered one side in sticky plastic and was doing the otherside so he could remove the glass.

Anyway certainly worth an email to fair trading as it seems almost like a Clayton’s warranty because there is no way in a residential house you could or would leave an external window broken and in tact waiting for a vendor to come and look at it.

Go for it.. get a letter from the glazier