Rear Window Shattered Inexplicably

[bmellish]

Today my trailer's back window shattered inexplicably. I went inside the house and left the space heater on. When I came back a couple hours later, the window was shattered. Prior to leaving the trailer, I turned off the furnace. Could the heat from the space heater have created enough pressure inside the trailer to shatter a window?

[idroba]

No. There are quite a few reports of windows shattering for no reason whatsoever. I had a friend with an 81 270 motorhome that the exact same thing happened to. They had stopped for lunch, went into a little local cafe, came out to a broken rear window. Absolutely no possibility someone did it while they were gone, relative to it's parking location or anything else. It just happened.

No space heater creates pressure inside the trailer. You just had bad luck.

[wahoonc]

Happens...

Sometimes there can be a very small nick in the glass and a thermal cycle can cause uneven pressure and their goes your window. There was a round of car sunroofs breaking around here one summer due to the extreme heat build up.

Aaron

[bmellish]

Thanks. My trailer is only two weeks old. I hope this isn't a common problem with the trailer.

[eubank]

Tempered glass is pretty quirky stuff. It can shatter for seemingly no reason at all (though it's likely that it's a microscopic crack or pit). On the other hand, it can show almost amazing strength.

A good example is from our experience, having purchased brand new windows for our 67 Airstream. These are darned expensive for the side windows because the glass is large and curved. So I installed the new glass, obviously following the wrong advice in doing so. And off we went to Zion National Park, where it was darned hot. We laid down to take an afternoon nap -- and ka-boom! One of the windows simply fell out. Not only did it just fall out, but it fell out and hit one of the large, metal tables seen at sites in national parks. It literally bounced off the table and hit the gravel. Completely unharmed. (The only harm was my psyche, realizing the bad mistake I'd made in mounting the windows with a tar-like tape material.)


Lynn

[Ganaraska]

Heat stress can shatter glass. If the trailer is only 2 weeks old it seems likely the glass was defective. It had internal stress that caused it to shatter. This is kind of a fluke that happens once in a while. It should be under warranty.