Tempered glass failure

[JohnDar]

A friend of mine with a new SoB was telling me about how one of his frameless windows suddenly shattered for no apparent reason. No evidence of it being struck or forced was found. After contacting his dealer and the window manufacturer, it seems they have had several instances of this occurring and attribute it to nickel sulfide inclusions in the glass. So being a bit of a science geek, I looked it up. Sure enough, it can be a problem in some cases. Here's but one of the articles on the matter.

https://failures.wikispaces.com/Glass+Breakage+-+Nickel+Sulfide+Inclusions

 

[Dave-Nichols61]

We have a 2014 BC. Last summer was its first summer on the road. We picked up the unit from our dealer the beginning of May/2014. In July while on a trip in our area, when we stopped at our destination, we went into the unit and found one side of our rear driver side window was shattered. Our dealer called heartland, they said it must have happened by a rock. We find that strange, because it seems to us that that would be not impossible but hardly unlikely.

 

[Bob&Patty]

John, I had something simular happen to me many years back. Some what of a warm, not hot day, I was standing by car and a 1 rain drop hit the back glass. It shattered into a bazillon pieces. Maybe thats what happened to your friend.

 

[JohnDar]

We have a 2014 BC. Last summer was its first summer on the road. We picked up the unit from our dealer the beginning of May/2014. In July while on a trip in our area, when we stopped at our destination, we went into the unit and found one side of our rear driver side window was shattered. Our dealer called heartland, they said it must have happened by a rock. We find that strange, because it seems to us that that would be not impossible but hardly unlikely.

In my friend's case, his rig was parked next to the house and not being used when he found the window shattered. It was fine when he parked it a day earlier. In Heartland's defense, this is not something that a customer service rep would necessarily be aware of unless the window manufacturer notified them. Even they might not know if they haven't experienced a number of complaints and done detailed analysis. My own lab-rat experience with the problems of inclusions was with cast metals (aluminum) and some plastics, not glass.

 

[Dave-Nichols61]

We are not unhappy with Heartland. We love our BC. We just chalked it up to a Oh Well thing and have carried on

 

[JohnDar]

We are not unhappy with Heartland. We love our BC. We just chalked it up to a Oh Well thing and have carried on

Didn't mean to imply that you were unhappy with them. In my past experience, the lab analysis didn't start until some threshold in the number of related complaints occurred. Customer service reps can only address what they're made aware of. The same holds true in the auto industry.

 

[Bob&Patty]

Tempered glass is pretty tough most of the time. Then a sonic boom or a lite tap with something and their a pile of broken glass.

 

[jbeletti]

On my last Landmark, I had an outer panel of a frameless-style dual pane window shatter. It remained held in place because it was a stationary piece and was glued to the perimeter of the frame. I used the RV for a couple thousand miles with it that way until the day I turned it in. I had no idea what caused it. All I could think of was a rock coming at me on the side of the RV as I traveled and it hit the edge of the glass.

One Heartlander looked at it and from the pattern of the in-place shattered glass, felt they could point to where something impacted the glass edge. My eye is not well trained in this sort of thing. Just put it on the list of things for Heartland to do during the refurb.

The article on "nickel sulfide inclusions " was interesting.