If the wrong side of a low E dual pane door was facing out and sunlight was directly hitting the door I believe that could cause the glass to overheat. You say the door was installed upside down, including the frame. Are you saying the track and rollers are on the top of the door?

Had that happen almost ten years ago. The inside pane shattered on one door. No one was home at the time so no idea why. I removed the other glass from the frames last month (we don't throw anything away) and used them for a greenhouse effect in a new shed that we are building.

Your doors and windows were not installed upside down. Labels aside.
Glass can break due to differential pressure and/or temperature extremes. The glass should be covered under warranty.
Ron

I replace at least one patio door panel per year due to the spontaneous breakage. It's usually during the colder months.

It happens in wood and vinyl patio doors.

Michael

Hi

This problem is often caused by the expansion and contraction of the wooden framing that surrounds the patio door.

A Patio door sits in between the wooden framing, which moves from winter to summer, and the brick veneer which pretty much stays where it is.

Many patio doors wont open properly because this warping of the frame distorts the patio door frame and pushes down on the panels. Sometimes it just makes the rollers wear out. Other times it so bad the glass actually breaks.

Its likely the this has happened to your door. You can tell if the frame is shifting by checking the top of the sliding door. Is the patio door leaving scrape marks on the top frame when you open and close it ?

Sometimes you can fix this problem by pulling out the shims behind the top casing and allowing the frame to snap back in place against the header.

Other times its so bad that you have to rework the header to get a proper size opening again.

Best Regards

Here is a link that might be useful: All-about-screen-doors

I have an aluminum, low-E sliding door that did the spontaneous shattering thing last night! It is a 6 year old Windowmaster product. I'm in San Diego. Door was functioning properly up until it shattered. Any other advice? Windowmaster was bought by Milgard, I found out recently when matching our old windows to new ones in a remodel. Defective product?

Which pane of glass broke?

I had a tempered glass picture window that recently exploded with a loud boom and after effects of glass shattering of the outside pane. What appeared to be a small bb gun or pellet hole in the upper left corner led me to believe that it was caused by someone shooting a bb gun and hit my window. However, after reading about spontaneous breakage, I am more than baffled that this could have happend. My manufactured house was built in 2006 and I bought it in 2010 but would never have imagined that tempered windows could explode. The outside temperature was 0 degrees to 5 above, and the inside temperature was 67 to 69 degrees - can't believe it would have been caused by the temperature. I will never use tempered glass again, if this is one of the effects. Although the glass eventually fell out on the outside of the house, leaving the inside panel, this happened on the coldest weekend in Minnesota - with 15 degrees below zero at night. I hope to never experience this again. F. Roche

It still very well could have been from that BB or Pellet hole. As far as tempered glass that is kind of its job, if that was regular glass that shattered there would have been razor sharp pieces all over the place. As far as not using tempered glass, god forbid you use regular glass in a door and someone falls into it and the glass breaks!

You cannot purchase a sliding patio door without tempered glass. It is illegal to make them without it.

Tempered glass is used to reduce the hazard of breakage.

If a large pane of untempered glass shatters for ANY reason the large falling pieces are a real danger.

The edges are sharp and the mass of the falling pieces gives them enough momentum to cut clean to the bone if they hit someone.

Tempering makes the glass stronger, but also ensures if it does break it crumbles into small pieces that while sharp, are so small that they cannot fall and cause serious injury.

You could try getting laminated glass, like auto windshields.
It is made by using two pieces of glass with a layer of plastic between them.
The plastic holds the glass together if it breaks preventing large free pieces while the plastic prevents objects from penetrating even after the glass is broken (of course the entire panel of glass can pop free if enough force is applied).

It is sort of a primitive form of bullet resistant glass (more layers of glass and plastic).

The standards for residential glass doors have been tightened as they became more popular and the number of serious injuries increased.
Now there are even rules for large pieces of glass near the floor or a doorway.

The glass on my patio doors shattered 1 week apart, same door both inside and outside window..never have I seen anything or even heard of this before..could it be from the house shifting? my door is not new and my house is very old but Ireally am stumped.

Wow! I'm glad I google this in. I went to take my dog out on Sunday afternoon, and noticed my sliding glass door was shattered! I could not believe that! The outside was shattered and the inside was not and the outside never went down. It looked like a beebee shot. I called the police to get a police report. He saw a spider web and ask me You know that is a dangerous spider don't you? I said that tiny spider he said yeah. I mention the spider cause I saw someone comments about a spider as well. I dont't know what could have happened but, I 'm glad I'm not the only one that it has happened to. I still can't believe it.

This same exact thing happened to the sliding glass door in my house also! The inside panel completely shattered but didnt fall from the frame while the outside panel remained in tact. This happened last Wednesday Sept 7th in the middle of the night as well... We are certain nothing we did caused it because we shut it before we went to bed and everything was fine.. We are trying to explain it to our landlord but he doesn't believe us.. does anyone have an idea of how we can persuade the man?

"We are trying to explain it to our landlord but he doesn't believe us.. does anyone have an idea of how we can persuade the man?"

Tell him to prove you broke it.

My elderly parents patio window shattered without reason. The outside glass was not effected but the inside pane is destroyed. I contacted the company who installed it but they said it was due to impact force and will not honour the warranty. How can we prove it was not damaged due to impact>

Bella sliding glass door installation was the clue to why the stationary door interior glass exploded. After doors were installed the handle sounded like it was brittle as if the glass surrounding the handle was cracked. The moving side was replaced even though the sound seemed the same. Years later the stationary door interior glass shattered one night. I agree that doors delivered to large retailers have more risk of damage that is not visible. Who takes the responsibility of damage when your warranty expires? Unless there is a recall on a model, replacement comes of the consumer's pocket.

I had a 20 year old townhouse with a three panel sliding patio door on the back (the middle panel slid/was the door) and while I was standing at the kitchen sink I heard a pop, turned around and the left inside panel had shattered. Nothing hit the glass and it was a normal spring day - temperature in the mid 70's. I think it cost about $100 for a glass shop to come out and replace the panel.

It just happens sometimes. If it's under warranty, get it replaced. If it's not, call a couple of glass shops, get quotes and go with one that has a good price/feel for the quality of their response.

Bam! 3 am lthis morning and thought a break in was in progress, grabbed my bat and went into the back and nothing suspicious, light on outside, nothing. Got up this morning at 0630 opening the blinds i saw the shattered glass spider web on the lefthand fixed panel of our doible slider. Went to mass and had a great KC breakfast at OMC. Raffle proceeds to our brothers and sisters in Ukraine🙏😱🍀

Any pictures?

Raccoons are getting sophisticated and more criminal.

I had a random shatter as well and pending to see if HOA covers it since it does face the exterior and accessed from both sides.
Home insurance has a high deductible.

In mean time I’m boarding it up from the inside in case all the glass decides to come out and to prevent a break in.

Working on getting a quote for just the glass repair versus the entire door which i hear is an expensive process.

This just happened to me, too. Got to our lake house and put up the shades to discover the entire right exterior pane had shattered in my slider system. Contacted Western Window Systems who manufactured it and was told the warranty doesn’t cover breakage. I have a video showing that nothing hit the pane and that the window actually bowed out from apparent internal pressure between the panes. Western still won’t warrant it. Another camera angle shows that no one was in our backyard or on the lake behind our house. Very irritating and expensive to have to replace. Window is less than 18 months old from a whole house remodel.

What do you mean that you "have a video"? Is there a CCTV type set up?

Yes. We have cameras at our lake house that will record. It’s an .mov so I can’t figure out how to upload it.

Ohhh! Just tried again and it worked. It’s at 4:34:18

We’ll maybe it only added the first drama sun not the video. Sorry. The pane is barely in the lower right frame.

Goodness….”first frame from the video”. So much for Siri’s autocorrect 😂

Doesn't load, but great backyard.

Well...I would reach out to them and show them the video. See what they come back with. Maybe they won't cover it in entirety, but give you some portion of credit.

Brenda! I had a huge panel in a 20' slider spontaneously shatter as well. It happened for us in March and Western claimed no responsibility and literally said, "get on the website and find a vendor in your area to buy a replacement panel". I found one ... spent SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS and western didn't ship evereything required for the install. Now I have been waiting for the second part for 90 days and the install still isn't complete.

This happened in MARCH. I am screaming from the rooftop for people to never buy Western Windows. It's the worst investment we made in the remodel.

Oh, Lauren. I’m so sorry! Same scenario for me, but still waiting on replacement obviously. I emailed Western after they denied it and the rep never even responded. I reported the incident to the Consumer Products Safety Commission. We have their sliders, front doors and HUGE stairwell window (7’ x 12’) and I’m totally worried about the safety of them now. I’m going to keep pressing, but am sure they won’t claim any responsibility. If another one shatters, we will take legal action. Please report yours also so we can get these on record somewhere.

I am super worried too. We have a 20' slider system and an 24' slider system and another big "normal" slider. If this happens again I will take action as well. I was hoping to find others so if there is enough of us it could be a class suit. The lack of customer support was atrocious. I am going to give you an anonymous email I created for this stuff and then if you contact me, I will give you my real email so we can keep in touch on this. reddittossaway2023 at gmail.com. I dont want to post my real email on the internet.

I’ll be in touch!!