How to Prevent Your Oven's Door from Shattering: There is no fool-proof way of catching these micro-fissures unless a glass company does something called water-bathing, which is uncommon and extremely expensive. At that point, there's virtually no way to tell if the break was caused by something bumping up against the glass while in the oven or a defect from the manufacturer that wasn't caught. It can take years before the glass shatters, usually long after any appliance warranty will cover the breakage. The continual heating and cooling of the stress fracture can cause it to become larger and larger until it eventually weakens the glass. These fissures can handle the stress, until one day they simply give out. Some of these micro-fissures are created when the glass is tempered, while others are created when something small bumps against the glass in the oven, like a pan, diamond ring, or metal spoon. There are a number of ways a glass oven door can shatter, but most of them have to do with tiny cracks that develop from something hitting the glass. Because of the tension the glass is under, if there are micro-stresses on the glass, it can shatter easily. Thus, as the center of the glass cools, it pulls back from the outer surfaces, creating tension, which gives the tempered glass strength.Īlthough this tempered glass is stronger and shatters more safely than other glass, it has its problems. High-pressured air blasts the surface of the glass and cools the outer surface faster than the center. Tempered glass is made by quickly heating the glass up to more than 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit and then running it through a highly pressured cooling process. These pebbles of glass injure individuals far less than regular glass. Instead of large, sharp shards that can cut deeply, tempered glass breaks into small dull-pebbled shards. It is designed to handle more pressure and break more "safely" than other types of glass. Tempered glass is around four times stronger than regular glass. Although the CPSC hasn't opened a formal investigation into the phenomenon, they have stated that they intend to "follow up on the reports" and that as long as the oven door is made of glass that was tempered correctly, it follows safety standards.
While it's not going to happen to every oven door out there, it's a common enough problem that it's even gone to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. If you simply Google the words "exploding oven door," you'll have hundreds of hits on news stories about unhappy customers, people asking for advice, and reports on why and how these glass doors happen to shatter. So, although it might not be a huge problem, it's a problem that seems to be increasing over the last few years. According to a King5 NBC news report in 2014, some brands' online complaints about this problem have increased from 19 in 2011 to more than 62 in 2013. Oven Doors Shattering: How Common Is It?įrom 1996 to 2013, there were around 440 complaints across different brands on Consumer Affairs, which represents 0.02% of ovens in the world. Since we don't generally cover something like an exploding glass oven door, we set out to research more about this phenomenon and figure out why this was happening and what consumers could do about it. Landmark Home Warranty has even had a few customers who have experienced this themselves. However, lately, many people have been complaining about shattering or even exploding glass oven doors. What happens when something that you cook in (and on) happens to be made of glass? Something like your oven? For most consumers, a glass oven door or cook-top provides minimal risk.
There are many things on earth that you don't want getting into your food, and glass is one of them.
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