I'm sitting having a Friday on the way home beer and my wife calls. She says she opened the patio door blinds to see that the door glass is shattered. I down my beer and head home. Sure enough, the inside glass of our double paned patio door is shattered. I called Metro Glass because they're close. They had the right size in stock and a guy waiting for something to do. An hour later we have new glass. But WTH broke tempered glass from the inside when we were at work? I've always thought our house might be occupied by persons that had passed on!

Could the door have been under any stress, put in a bind or twist? We had a large double pane picture window in a house I once owned, and one day, I heard this loud pop that came from the living room. After doing some looking around to see what it was, I happend to look out the front window and through the blinds I saw a black line running diagonally accross the window. Upon raising the blinds, I found a crack in the glass running corner to corner. The window guys said that there was probably just enough twist in the window that held it under stress, and the temperature change and expansion in the glass that day was enough to make it crack. It wasn't tempered glass so it stayed in place, but it was loud when it cracked.

I hope not, but do you think anyone attempted to break in? Perhaps someone damaged the glass trying to get in, but bolted when it made noise, or they got scared off?

It's definitely haunted.

I don't think was under stress. The sliding frame fits and slides loosely in the jamb and easily locks and unlocks.

My first thought when my wife called when she got home Friday was someone had tried to break in. So I rushed home. No sign of any prying. And I would think it would be hard to break the inner pane and not the outer.

It's a mystery.

I would go with it being haunted.

I am thinking the extreme temperature changes we have had stressed the glass.

I am thinking the extreme temperature changes we have had stressed the glass.I thought about that too but I would think the outer pane would be more susceptible to expansion/contraction.

And I'm a bit ticked because I had been saving to go to St. louis for opening day against the Cubs. Guess what I had to use to pay for the door glass?

I am thinking the extreme temperature changes we have had stressed the glass.

That should not happen with tempered glass with the weather changes we have had. Maybe from 0-75 I could maybe possibly see it but not really even with something that drastic.

I thought about that too but I would think the outer pane would be more susceptible to expansion/contraction.

If there was a scratch on the inside glass, heat could shatter it and not the outside glass. I had a large expanse of glass on the west side of my house shatter that way.

If there was a scratch on the inside glass, heat could shatter it and not the outside glass. I had a large expanse of glass on the west side of my house shatter that way.Now there's a possibility. We have cats and they had made scratches, even if small ones, in the bottom part of the glass when pawing at birds, leaves, outside cats, etc. I never thought of that being a problem. But I've used a glass cutter and that is essentially what a cutter wheel does. Hmmmmmm!!!

Or....maybe one of the cats did it. I'm picture a couple cats sitting there all innocent like, looking around the room whistling.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cat_kill

Not saying your house is haunted.
Also not willing to drop by and check out closets or look under beds.

Best advice ... invite Chuck Norris over for a meal.

This exact thing happened to our house when I was a kid - but I was home when it happened.

Almost identical scenario, with the exception that I was about 12 or 13, home alone, and watching TV one afternoon after school (mind you, this would have been about 1975 or so), and with no warning of any kind came this thunderous, terrifying *WHOMP* as if something *HUGE* had hit the house. When I had the nerve to come back into the room, I heard this strange "crinkling" noise very much like someone wadding up a piece of paper. When my heartrate dropped to something below 350, I finally had the sense to note the sound came (and was coming from) our double-paned sliding glass door.

Once I got the nerve to pull back the curtain, I saw one side of the glass having shattered into countless thousands of tiny shards - just as you would expect a piece of tempered glass to break. There was, as I recall, no obvious "center point" of the refracting web of fracture that might indicate an origin - just a mass of crackled glass where a transparent pane was only minutes earlier. The only thing we were ever able to theorize is the house just (finally) had settled in a way that leveraged an ever-so-slight twist in the installation of the door, putting just the right stress on it to make it crumble. Still one of the most astonishing things I remember hearing/seeing as a kid.