Think twice about glass entertainment centers
Monday, August 21, 2006
I stumbled onto an article at the AVS forums about a couple and their glass entertainment center that exploded. They had a plasma TV on it when it exploded but they got lucky and were able to make sure the plasma didn't crash to the floor.
Looking at the stand it seems like it needs more support in the middle, also tempered glass or safety glass is not supposed to explode and go everywhere. Looks like there was a shortcut taken in the manufacturing of this.
A poster on the AVS forums mentioned what if there was a small child in front of the tv?.. Yea no shit about that.
The company that made the entertainment center is not responding to any calls or e-mails so they are dodging responsibility for it.
Here are the companies to avoid:
Avdeco Inc (maker of the entertainment stand)
The online dealer who sold it to them: Threshold Concepts
It looks like safety glass to me- it's in those small bead-like pieces, rather than deadly shards
I thought safety glass has a sheet of plastic running through it so as to not have total collapse. Maybe I am thinking of automotive glass.
Not that I know what I'm talking about (IANOL, etc)
But tempered glass is not the same as (automotive?) safety glass, which is not the same as run-of-the-mill glass. Your windshield is made of safety glass, which is tempered glass with a layer of plastic.
Furniture is not made from safety glass, it's typically just tempered glass. Among other things, tempered glass takes much more effort to crack than untempered, but tempered glass will tend to completely shatter into beads rather than larger shards.
Also, multiple impacts over time cause structural damage which will eventually cause catastrophic failure. The final blow can be as little as setting a cup down on the surface. I once had an office table shatter after bumping it with my chair, with the various larger pieces visibly cracked and still breaking apart several minutes later. Made quite the amusing noise in the waste bin.
I believe this is may be the same effect as is seen in aluminum bike frames: pretty much any vibration to an aluminum frame causes permanent damage, and as such, an aluminum bike will eventually break with any amount of use over a long enough time period, as opposed to a steel frame, which can tolerate a much larger shock before being permanently damaged.
ok, well maybe this story is getting blown out of proportion. It looks like the glass broke properly but still it breaking on it's own is kinda suspicous.
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