It's usual to use mirror mastic and sometimes clips/anchors, depending on the size of the mirror. The large plate glass mirrors popular until recently usually also rested on the backsplash beneath them. When we took one out where I lived before it took a lot of very careful work to get that thing free of the wall. I would not say falling mirrors are at all a usual thing. In my current, yet-to-be renovated bath there is a 74" x 48" mirror held entirely by mastic and splash, and that thing's not going anywhere easily, I can tell you.

I would be curious to find out if maybe he had removed that backsplash--that's the first thing that occurs to me as a likely cause for a falling mirror. 4" splashes are very out of style right now.

I would love to know how it fell down cause I want to take mine off. I am changing my vanity and all the new vanities are taller than my current one. Mine sits on top of a 4 inch backsplash. I'm curious about the comment that 4 inch backsplashes are out of style. What should I do? I'm planning on a Whiter Bertch cabinet with a solid surface top. The width will be 30 inches. So I figure I have to remove my glued on mirror. Any ideas on the best way to do that?

We had a mirror removed that had been glued on for 50 some years. The mirror co. crew wore what looked like metal reinforced space suits when they went in to take it down. They said removing these things is always a @#$%&*#. It sounds like this one case may have been an anomaly since I doubt professional installation techniques are at a lesser standard than they were in the 1950's. On second thought maybe I'm wrong about that.

Yeah, cleblanc, I would definitely get professional help for taking yours down. The risks just aren't worth it.

I know these comments were a million years ago but my big a$$ sheet mirror not attached to the wall in any other way other than glue fell from the wall in the middle of the night. I'm so thankful for the timing of it since I do have a 2 and 4 year old. My house was built in 2013 and I moved in 2014. You better believe that I texted the builder at 1:30 in the morning. I think it should be standard to have a sizable piece of glass mounted to the wall rather than glued or dont put the worlds biggest piece of glass on the wall with glue. I know it's neither the builder or inspectors fault but I'm going to call the inspector to see if they can start making recommendations on this so people are not killed or disfigured. I could be childless now if my kids were in there at that time.

My wife and I just pulled a 48" x 91" mirror off our bathroom wall using a pair of my Woods Power Grips. It was stuck just right with about (15) 3" diameter blobs of mastic. Not for the faint of heart.

The mirror is stored behind our piano. If anyone wants it, come and get it.

Rarely are hardware clips ever used in Vancouver. It is practice to glue mirrors and nothing else 9 times out of 10.

Dam, should at the very least set in a bottom "J" which gets tacked to the wall. That plus the correctly applied mastic is generally enough. I have usually seen the mirror break 50% of the time before they come off the wall.

I had a J on all of them but the J was just resting on the backsplash. It was NOT screwed into the wall at all to my great surprise.

What a timely thread! Last week I got a call from our contractor who reported that giant mirror in bathroom had fallen off the wall and broke a pipe that had been capped off when the vanity was removed prior to laying tile flooring. Much of the apartment was flooded as was the apartment underneath mine.

Luckly they had not yet laid the new flooring but there was considerable damage to the person living below me.

I recently removed one from my bathroom. It had been held by five spots of black adhesive. It came off in one piece but we had totally covered it in tape prior to removing it just in case. Now I'm reading this I'm glad we took it down before removing the vanity. The vanity might have been partially holding it up.

Exactly! I think in my case the vanity was holding up the mirror. Good thing you were thoughtful about proceeding. I had a real mess on my hands and the older lady living below "had" to go to a hotel for a few days.

My bathroom mirror just fell off with the glue. It shattered everywhere. My children would have been dead if they were in the bathroom. I was traumatized by it! It made me sick. I am having other mirrors taken down. Not sure what to put them back up with. All my glass company told me that was standard!! I found 3 other people in my neighborhood this happened to as well.

I've never heard of a mirror falling off the wall, but I went into my girls' bathroom to look at their mirror, which is a whopping 11' wide. Yes, that's feet, not inches.

It is attached with clips AND is sitting on a small ledge. I guess that's why it's hung safely since this house was built in the 60s. I don't think I'm going to worry about it.

J channel and gunther/mirror mastic. If applied properly more often than not you need to break the mirror into pcs to get it off the wall.

My bathroom mirror fell off my wall and luckily my bathroom medicine cabinet door stopped it from crashing, but it broke the bathroom medicine cabinet mirror. This was a mirror that was over a double bathroom vanity. I don't know when the mirror was installed, perhaps when the building was built in 1961, but I had lived in the condo for 26 years. I just moved into a brand new home with very large mirrors glued to the walls over the bathroom sinks. I am going to secure the mirrors with clips.

We could not remove our own 7' wall to wall mirror from the 60s off the wall, no matter what, even with large suction cups. It. would. not. budge! So we covered the whole mirror with a self-stick adhesive sheet and shattered it with a hammer. We could see dozens of black adhesive blobs underneath.

OTOH, my boss' similar sized mirror from the 90s crashed down just as he entered the bathroom. He wasn't hurt, but was quite shaken. Seems the installers skimped on adhesive, only 3 or 4 black blobs of adhesive had been used.

Well this beats most mirror horror stories I went upstairs after walking my dogs yesterday and found three 5' x 8" mirror wall panels on my bedroom wall

Didn't do my cat any good, she was sleeping close by but escaped and bolted from the house yesterday... came back this am..

Poor Kitty....what a trauma. My insurance company ended up paying out $14,000 in damages for the flood to the condo below mine when the mirror broke the pipe below! This is one scary subject! Glad you and kitty are ok.

Robyn-

That looks like a bad installation where they skimped on the amount of mirror mastic used. You can also have a failure if the installer uses mastic that is beyond the expiration date (usually 6-12 months from manufacture). Unfortunately, it's impossible to determine how good the installation is if you only see it after the mirror is in place.

I know this thread is older but early this morning/middle of night at 12:30am we were jolted out of bed when our huge vanity mirror in bathroom fell off wall. It was crazy loud and it literally would have killed someone if they had been standing there!! we have two more counter to ceiling mirrors in our bathroom and now I'm scared to death they will come down too! it looks like the mastic only really attached to the mirror on one of six spots...

If it were me, I’d do two things:

1) Test each of the remaining mirrors by gently pulling at the edges on all reachable sides to see if there is any visible movement. Have a helper who is supporting the mirror in case it comes loose, and carefully remove it if it moves. Wear leather gloves, heavy clothing, and goggles.

2) Even if the attachment seems secure, see if it's possible to use a caulk gun and a new tube of mirror mastic to force more adhesive into the space that usually exists between the wall and the back of the mirror on all reachable edges. You can use painter's masking tape to keep things neat.

If any of these instructions seem beyond your skill level or make you nervous, call a professional. Dealing with large, heavy pieces of glass is not a job for someone who does not have good DIY skills. Since I can't judge your skills, proceed at your own risk.

Two of mine came off last week

like some other reports in this thread, our very large bathroom mirror fell off in the middle of last night. There are a lot of glue patches on the wall, although some are way thinner than others. It was sitting directlyy on counter. When it detached and leaned forward it shoved the faucets forward, shattering the travertine around them. The mirror was installed 20 yr ago

Same thing happened to my Dad's house, built in 1999. The mirror fell off the wall in the middle of the night in 2005. He removed all the other bathrooms mirrors and installed new ones using the correct mastic and the channel at the bottom. I hear about this a lot. I don't know how rare it is.

This same thing happened to us yesterday. A huge mirror over a double vanity in the master bath fell while I was still in bed. I can't tell you how it frightened me. I am thankful the room wasn't occupied. There was mastic but it was only sticking to the mirror back, none on the wall but there were globs of the black adhesive. However, no hardware at all secured this monster. The house was built in 1988. It was a mess to clean up and it's a two story house.

We live in coastal Central Florida and this happened to us yesterday. No hardware at all just adhesive and mastic. Extremely dangerous. This house was built in 1988.

Were another story of a large mirror falling. We live in centeal Florida. Our home is relatively new- built in 2017. I was downstairs with my kids when we suddenly heard a loud thump. our latge double sink mirror help up by 6 globa of glue had fallen down ans shattered everywhere. like every one else whos experienced this, im grateful no one was in the bathroom because if anyone was they would have been seriously injured.

Im reading rhat mystic glue is standard, but a study should be done because i the cases where the glue fails, real damage happens. the mirror tore a while through an adjacent wall. image what that same piece of glas whould have done to a person, an artey, a bone. This is a deadly failure! it has to be looked into.

we’ll be removing the other mirrors in our home and replacing them something bolted and secure. its too scary and costlt not to!

My home is Built-in in 2017 (mirror shattered May 2022) by 1 of the largest home builders in the USA, with 2 stories, a mirror in the master bedroom size about 60''x40'' shattered this last summer and I am now still traumatized.

Should these be reported to somewhere so new home buyers could be aware of this risks? of having large mirror?

There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with large wa;ll mounte dmirrors, they are all over the pplace with zero issues. Really the only way they break is either something hits it or stress possibly from movement (walls shifting, settling, etc).

Palmer Mirror Mastic has instructions for adhering mirror to a wall. They provide installation instructions as to the amount and the spacing. If those instructions had been followed glaziers with suction cups would be required to detach that mirror. We always warned customers who wanted mirror removed to expect much drywall damage including replacing the actual drywall. The problem, and I see it in those previous pictures, is not enough mastic. Palmer is expensive and I had a competitor who skimped on the spacing and the amount. It is abhorrent for installers and their supervisors to endanger people, but it is done in all fields, not just construction. There is usually a good reason a company is the low bidder. Do you want the low-bid mechanic to buy the cheapest parts to fix your car? Do you want the low-bid dentist?

Last night 3am. I also have 2 young children and another one of these mirrors. Not safe.

Emily, I stand by my statement just above your post. I am so happy no one was injured when this mirror fell. It is totally the fault of the installers who decided to save a very few dollars by skimping on the mirror mastic.

^^^^ Absolutely very obvious they did not use enough mirror mastic.

So this happened to us yesterday and we are also very fortunate that we were out when the mirror fell. The weather has been very warm for the past few weeks so I wonder if that played a part with the black adhesive that was used to secure the mirror. I have another bathroom that has one of these mirrors. Is there anything else that can be done to secure the mirror so that in case the adhesives fail, the mirror will still be attached to the wall? Wondering if mirror holders/clips will hold the mirror.

" Wondering if mirror holders/clips will hold the mirror. "

Whether they would truly "hold" the mirror I could not answer. They however will never hurt. The Gunther (mirror mastic) is typically not ever effected by the heat once cured.