TIFU by exploding Grandma’s glass shower door into a million pieces

Submitted by ThePartyWagon t3_zw36yz in tifu

Alright, so this actually happened today, 4 hours ago.

I’ve been staying with my in-laws for the holidays and they’ve been such great hosts. Dinners, drinks, movies, games, the whole Christmas nine yards.

My wife’s grandma lives on the property in a little guest house and she’s able to come and go as she pleases while still having her own space. It’s great.

I’ve been trying to help with things and be of as much assistance as I can but there hasn’t been anything significant I can contribute, other than driving both of their daughters home for the holidays through 12 hours of traffic and snow storms.

So, onto the FU, grandma came over and let us know her shower door was jammed and fell fo the track, perfect opportunity. I’m the guy who can fix things, has tools, and the mechanical aptitude to work things. I jumped on the opportunity to fix the door and be the guy who saved grandma’s day.

I walked next door and the glass door won’t slide, jammed up pretty good. The rollers at the top of the door were out of the track and the door just needed to be lifted about a half inch to drop the rollers back into place.

I grab the door, go to lift and the whole thing explodes, literally explodes everywhere. Glass in my hair, shower full of tempered glass, and I’m barefoot standing in an inch of glass.

No idea what happened, no clue why it broke. I didn’t even get the glass door lifted off the door frame before it exploded.

The other grandma was on her way over so I ended up spending an hour in the bathroom, cleaning up the glass, cleaned the whole floor, picking glass out of every nook and cranny, out of my hair, out of my clothing, etc.

Unfortunately, the moment I was waiting for backfired spectacularly and now grandma can’t use her shower. My wife’s uncle is a contractor and he said it will be somewhere between $400-$1000, fuck.

TL;DR: been waiting for my opportunity to shine while staying at my in-laws for the holidays. Tried to fix grandma’s glass shower door and ended up exploding it into a million pieces instead.

Merry Christmas Grandma! You get a new shower door!

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Comments

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Ramona_Flours t1_j1smfi3 wrote

sounds like you saved her from having glass explode all over her

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ThePartyWagon OP t1_j1smjir wrote

That’s what the fam said. Better me than 90 year old grandma.

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ArltheCrazy t1_j1u77kx wrote

I’ve sold and installed shower doors for years. With tempered glass, any small hit on a corner or edge will do. My guys have had them explode while still wrapped from the factory and edge protected as they were carrying it.

I had a sliding door explode on me while trying to fix it. Not your FU, you just got caught holding the hot potato. Look in the corners of the other glass panel for a tempering logo. Then maybe talk to a local glass shop.

And, you have probably already learned this, please always wear shoes and safety glasses when dealing with glass.

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radkiller22 t1_j1tkroz wrote

Could've scared the life out of her too

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Raichu7 t1_j1tpat1 wrote

Could’ve done much worse than that considering how easily elderly people’s skin can tear. Grandma might have been seriously hurt.

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svenvbins t1_j1tqxwi wrote

Grandma doesnt care about torn skin if she's dead though.

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Filthyfrankfurter t1_j1ush1w wrote

Same thing happened to my brother when we were kids. The door wasn't jammed. He was taking a shower and it just exploded when he was getting out. Cut up his arm/feet pretty bad.

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lancerisdead t1_j1spgpu wrote

Tempered glass tends to be extremely hard to break, but once there’s a fracture, if pressure gets applied to it, it’ll basically explode like said. I’d guess there was a tiny fracture or crack from coming out of the runners and anything that touched it would have caused it to shatter like that. Very much not your fault.

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Thebombuknow t1_j1u0tyy wrote

Yeah, this happens constantly to glass side panels in the PC world. I've seen so many pictures of people's brand new computers with exploded tempered side panels. Once there is the tiniest of stress fractures, so much as tightening down a screw slightly too much can cause the glass to spontaneously explode.

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slavnar95 t1_j1u5w84 wrote

I had a tempered glass chair mat from costco. I liked it. However, I rolled off the edge with my chair and it just exploded into pieces of glass.

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AcrobaticSource3 t1_j1stwsc wrote

I was concerned that this was going to be a story about glass shattering sex in grandma’s shower, but instead I am relieved that it wasn’t, and that everyone is okay

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Frogsnotjesus t1_j1v7r7u wrote

Hahaha I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought so lol

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SweetMilitia t1_j1tbbjn wrote

Can you make a temp fix and get a tension pole rod and shower curtain?

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happygato t1_j1tcrn1 wrote

Sounds cheap, but he is right, no reason she can’t shower if you can put a regular tension pole and curtain up.

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Thebombuknow t1_j1u0wx8 wrote

Typically if it's a glass shower door, the shower door itself is what seals the shower. A curtain would allow water to spill out of the shower, if I'm not mistaken.

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TheFirebyrd t1_j1u2d3h wrote

Obviously it’s going to depend on the setup, but doors aren’t a seal, they’re just blocking the water from getting out. If there’s still a lip at the bottom even with the door gone to keep stuff on the floor from flowing out of the shower, a curtain can work. My family had to take out the doors and put up a curtain in my mom’s shower to accommodate things like her shower chair and nursing aides after she was severely injured in a car accident. It worked just fine. Given how many different setups are out there, I’m sure there are circumstances it won’t work, but it is workable for at least some shower layouts.

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Thebombuknow t1_j1u3j3f wrote

Yeah, true. Mine doesn't have a lip, the door has a rubber seal, so without it the water would just go everywhere, though based on the replies I'm guessing that's fairly uncommon lol.

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TheFirebyrd t1_j1u5xf7 wrote

The ones I’ve encountered have generally had a frame the door sits in. Even if there isn’t a raised lip on the shower itself, the frame if left could serve the same purpose. There are lots of weird houses out there, though, so I’m sure there are all kinds of exceptions like yours.

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slavnar95 t1_j1u5zto wrote

No. You can simply have the curtain long enough that all the water washes down the curtain into the shower stall.

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collapsingwaves t1_j1u1n3p wrote

Wut?

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Thebombuknow t1_j1u2cj3 wrote

At least on my shower, the glass door has a little rubber part at the bottom, and the shower floor is flat. If that wasn't there to seal it, the water would just pour out into the rest of the bathroom.

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collapsingwaves t1_j1uberc wrote

Not if the curtain is,draped an the floor. Not ideal, but would work

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al3237 t1_j1szo0o wrote

Those doors are always at risk of breaking for anything, you could handle it way better than the granny would, you did a blessing in disguise, it happens, the thoughts that matter too

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scouch4703 t1_j1tbrsz wrote

prolly got fractured when it hit from falling off the header, then when you went to lift it, it popped. I'm a glazier, I've had a few blow up

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cacarson7 t1_j1tc75m wrote

Don't beat yourself up over this at all, OP. As someone who has installed many tempered glass shower doors, they are known to occasionally explode for no apparent reason. The guy I work with had a brand new one explode in his hands while he was installing it, much as you described. Depending on the age of the door, you could call the manufacturer and/or installer to see if it might be under warranty.

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GurthNada t1_j1ums03 wrote

>they are known to occasionally explode for no apparent reason

Seems like a pretty big flaw for a large-sized piece of equipment that's meant to be used by naked people.

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malraux78 t1_j1v0ivn wrote

Tempered glass is designed to intentionally shatter into lots of tiny pieces. Consider the other way. Where glass breaks into a few large pieces. Those are big enough to penetrate your body and really hurt you. The tiny pieces will give you a bunch of small cuts rather than one giant gash.

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RunninOnMT t1_j1vuau0 wrote

Yup, had one explode all over my hand and while I was cut many many times, each cut was tiny and I wasn't really in pain or anything. I don't want to think about how deep the cuts would've been if they'd been heavier pieces of glass falling down.

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malraux78 t1_j1xh9h1 wrote

Especially for the shower where you'll likely be right next to the glass when it breaks and pretty much have no protective gear or clothes on.

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cjeam t1_j1upm3a wrote

It's a flaw yes, but I believe it's also a flaw caused by the treatment process that they go through to give them the advantage of when they do break the pieces not being very sharp. So on balance this way is better.

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cacarson7 t1_j1urs6s wrote

I mean, there is a clearly a reason for a large piece of expensive glass to suddenly disintegrate, but it could be a tiny crack from shipping damage or something basically unapparrent to the naked eye.

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kuh-tea-uh t1_j1sxhpk wrote

The panel of glass was probably slightly twisted.

What a mess!! Better you than her, for sure.

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MrFergison t1_j1thlj5 wrote

Do worries OP. The glass used for shower doors are made to shatter. If it shattered, that means normal glass would've broken into larger chunks that could fall on someone and do some real damage. They're built to shatter as a safety feature, because the small bits normally wont do more damage than some light scratches if they hit you.

The cost to fix can suck, but if it was warped/stuck it was going to happen to the next person who tried to move it.

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Snoringdragon t1_j1teaji wrote

Family member was a bit tipsy and went right through one after a stumble and he put his hand out to steady himself. Blood everywhere, multiple small but very nasty cuts all over. Your FU saved her a LOT of grief. Eat the cost, and know you aren't an asshole. Your good deed had a better if seemingly worse outcome.

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ooooooooooooolivia t1_j1ti8g7 wrote

Whatever position it was stuck in probably resulted in a lot of stress.

You or the next guy, there's likely no way to avoid an explosion. However OP, while this wasn't a FU, your lack of PPE certainly was, and you're lucky not to be in the ER with a shard embedded in your foot

If you have tools out, then safety goggles and shoes are the bare minimum imo. Don't be the guy who lets his overconfidence get in the way of the fact that accidents can and will happen to everyone

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Revenge_of_the_User t1_j1tn660 wrote

Have experience moving glass. If you put the wrong pressure anywhere (particularly edges and corners, and it can be the glass' own weight as well that does it) it just insta-poofs into shards and dust. Though this is tempered/treated glass.

Was resting a shower door on my foot while a customer was getting her car ready and a corner happened to touch the concrete. I didnt even feel the glass touch the concrete. Boof, no more door.

Happens. But for anyone out there: you cant manhandle stuck tempered glass, because it wont flex and you can never tell where the forces are at (usually edges and corners, or otherwise hardware that concentrates forces) always deal with the tracks or hardware if you can. And have an extra person to distribute weight....glass is heavy furthering the risk.

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Strayresearch t1_j1ta2q1 wrote

It happens, one of our shower doors exploded a couple minutes after showering, was in the process of drying/getting dressed a few feet away, and bam glass everywhere.

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slavnar95 t1_j1u5u4v wrote

400-1000 dollars for a glass door?

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cjeam t1_j1uptnm wrote

Yeah that sounds entirely unreasonable.

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101-25fixit t1_j1tmig6 wrote

This happened to me one day at my grandmas house. We went to air out our house since no one had been in it in months and it had been 115+ degrees the whole time. I opened the shower door and it shattered on me.

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santathe1 t1_j1tvshl wrote

Look on the bright side, it could have exploded into 2 million pieces.

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snoopervisor t1_j1tukgp wrote

The same happened to me. But the door fell off completely. Now I fixed there a shower curtain (trimmed to be not too wide) with clothes pins. It's been a year, and it works well enough. The whole bathroom needs to be renewed at some point. No money for now.

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2muchyarn t1_j1u14sk wrote

Sounds like it was not just an easy fix and would have happened no matter who was the unfortunate person to try. Hang a shower curtain in the mean time so she can use the shower.

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Blekanly t1_j1u1shr wrote

Oh... Well this was better than expected. I was expecting a girthy dildo suction cupped to the glass and lots of thrusting.

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xNyackx t1_j1u8lp7 wrote

I had the exact same thing happen to me with the exact same style of door (I am assuming a glass curved sliding half door.). Something about them being jammed and when you lift it releases all the pressure and the whole thing shattered.

Always hated those doors, they always come of their railings and are annoying to clean.

Anyway, thankfully mum was just like "well now I have an excuse to replace the shower" so it was all good.

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single_malt_jedi t1_j1uazu8 wrote

>No idea what happened, no clue why it broke.

Probably tweaked it just enough to catch the edge of the glass in the frame.

I work in a window/door factory. I deal with tempered glass all night long. You can blast the center of that glass with the plastic headed hammers we use and nothing happens. Tap that corner though....POP!

I actually had a piece of glass blow up hard enough that the chunks hit and popped a piece of glass behind me.

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riotblade76 t1_j1ukc2k wrote

Oh, I thought you had intense sex in grandma's shower and you shattered the glass.

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ornitorrinco22 t1_j1urbfu wrote

Like many have said, this might happen to tempered glass doors. It’s also worth saying that there are doors that come with a kind of pellicle that prevents the millions of pieces from falling apart in case the glass breaks.

Glass doors are pretty much the standard in Brazil and I have seen more than one break like this.

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Jirekianu t1_j1uwjrq wrote

Tempered glass is one of those things that's a neat material but if you have a bad supplier then you'll be dealing with some shit.

We got a new freezer last year and it had tempered glass shelves. Randomly one day in the first month we heard a sound like ice tumbling out of an ice maker.

One of the shelves exploded. And after cleaning up all the glass the only conclusion I could come to was bad tempering QC. Which was corroborated by the repair guy fulfilling the warranty policy and replacing the shelf.

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wutangjan t1_j1vckmr wrote

Pardon the incredulity but it sounds like you don't need to replace her shower door for her. Things break, you were doing a good deed when it happened so it is not your fault.

If you are feeling guilty about granny not getting to bathe, buy her a shower rod and curtain and wish her the best of luck. I mean you can replace the broken door out of an abundance of kindness, but you really shouldn't feel obligated to do it.

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RunninOnMT t1_j1vu36o wrote

This happened to me as a kid when i went to go shower first thing in the morning. The door had an attached towel holder which i was using as a handle to slide it. One moment i'm sliding a door, the next moment i'm hold a towel bar mid air and my hand is bleeding from like a dozen tiny cuts.

Definitely not ideal when you've rolled out of bed 15 seconds earlier.

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swissarmychainsaw t1_j1vxy57 wrote

You took one for the team. I have mad scars from a broken shower door.

Glass is no longer code for a shower door, for a good reason!

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Kcnflman t1_j1u75wb wrote

Did you literally count the pieces?

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