Cape Coral homeowners describe spontaneous glass explosion

CAPE CORAL, Fla. – There could be a ticking time bomb in your home. Without a warning, an explosion could send glass flying through your house.

For the second time in just months, another Southwest Floridian called WINK News to report a piece of tempered glass in her home had exploded.

“We didn’t know what exactly it was at first, exploding noise.”

Jadzia Baylor took us back to the moment just weeks ago when a loud, exploding noise woke her and her husband from sleep.

“My heart just liked stopped. I was just– couldn’t figure it out at first and then it was extremely loud, so I just uh, I had to pause for a minute and wait to see if i should really get up or just call 911,” she recalled. “It was crazy.”

Baylor’s glass vessel sink in her bathroom had exploded sending small pieces of glass flying from one end of her room, clear to the other. Just four months ago, WINK News spoke with another couple who told us their glass dining room table top also exploded; without warning and while no one was using it.

Exploding tempered glass in the home is a real hazard, though it does not happen often. Since May, WINK News uncovered 12 cases of exploding glass in the home reported to the federal government from all over the country. Most of the cases involved the glass door of an oven exploding even when the oven was not in use.

So why is tempered glass used in the home? According to Doug Daubmann of D-3 Glass in Lee County, it is stronger and safer. If it breaks, you get tinier shards of glass.

“Plate glass breaks see how these are large shards? Now if this glass is above you or you are sitting at a large table, this heavy piece with the sharp edges can come down and take a limb off,” he demonstrated.

So what causes this type of glass to break?

“When we temper the glass and heat it to 1200-some odd degrees, the nickel sulfide will expand and if it happens to be in the center of the glass when it gets cooled, this is when it could cause a problem down the road,” said Daubmann. It could happen at any time.”

While the problem is rare, it is also impossible to detect. If you have an issue like tempered glass in your home exploding, you can contact the manufacturer to see if they will give you a rebate, but there is no guarantee. However, you can report the incident to the government because if they notice a pattern in a specific product, they may issue a recall.