My vanity just exploded in my new bathhrom

[daydream**believer]

Im so upset. I dont know what to do.

Have been working on this bathroom for a year.

I took this photo  a month ago. Things in place but water not connected

Have had a few plumber problems but they have been fixed.

Today plumber was here connecting final pipes for the vanity. He did it and called me to see. We were standing in front of the vanity when there was a BOOOOM and the glass top exploded.

Plumber says "Oh dont know why that would have happened. Oh well, it was installed. Maybe you can claim it on insurance"

I dont know what to do. Im in shock and in tears.

Hubby bought this vanity 5 years ago. I know theres no way we can replace it.

And now im gonna have to pay a plumbers bill of fitting this vanity and then also to fit a new one

[i-once-was-bump]

This post is probably a bit late but here goes.

Tempered glass used to be toughened using heat but now a lot of imported tempered glass from China is toughened chemically.

Chemically toughened glass is an inferior product and over years will start to break down and on clear glass a "white frosting" effect will develop (usually starting at an edge exposed to heavy use).

You need to insist on heat toughened glass and this can be difficult because some glass from China has been heat toughened.

Going by the second photo it looks like the glass shattered into small pieces and not into shards which is one good thing about your glass.

The plumber might have been the straw that broke the camels back but if you had it stored for 5 years then you would need to be certain that it was always stored on an edge and never bumped before you can prove the plumber was at fault.

BTW my mother had a glass stove top explode into hundreds of small pieces about 30 years ago so exploding glass has been around for years but that was put down to a faulty element under the glass (but I would not accept that excuse these days).

[freakiness]

 i could only find one place selling similar

I must have spent too long looking for bathroom stuff last year  :^O

you can get replacement tops in blue and regular too

[daydream**believer]

we wont be trying to prove it was the plumbers fault.

We cant.

Its all up to the insurance company now

[monman12]

IOWB "Chemically toughened glass is an inferior product"

Not really, it just has different uses, my watch has a chemically treated glass, because the surface is tougher then tempered glass.

DB's basin, from the photograph, would appear to be tempered glass, because of the size and shape of the pieces.

Chemically hardened glass breaks in a similar manner to standard glass, whilst tempered glass shatters into much  smaller (safer) size pieces.

[daydream**believer]

no update from insurance place yet

[i-once-was-bump]

monman I should have said at the time that my post was directly related to the bathroom vanity and shower screens.

[daydream**believer]

well we had the shower screen fitted by Regency yesterday and at this stage it hasnt exploded

[azureline**]

A neighbour had their glass splashback shatter yesterday, in their kitchen, it hadn't been used for about 14 hours.

[blujinja]

My OH says to check and see if the plumber put the washers on before tightening the pipes. There should not have been any metal on glass.

[daydream**believer]

there was metal on glass