Oven door shattering - has this ever happened to you?

Hi Community,

We’ve received a few reports recently of the inner doors of ovens shattering - in fact, this happened to me a few weeks ago, with a 2 and half year old Miele.

We’re investigating to see if this is a problem with a particular brand or model of oven - if you’ve had this happen, please comment and let us know what brand your oven is.

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Not directly to us,
but anecdotally amongst my circle of friends and acquaintances I have heard of it more than once.

I am aware it was usually fixed under warranty and usually blamed on quality control during tempering of the glass during manufacture.

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The inner glass panel of my Emilia oven door shattered while I was using it a couple of years ago. I found two or three similar complaints online by other Emilia oven owners, which I referred to when I contacted the company’s complaints department via email. The representative was aware of the problem and delivered a replacement panel by courier to me for no charge, and once we’d cleaned out the shattered remains of the old panel, it was easy to install the new one.

The representative also suggested we close the oven door gently when it was hot, since it would be more susceptible to shattering if there was a flaw in the glass. However when mine shattered it was just on with the door closed, midway through roasting some meat, I hadn’t recently opened or closed it. I don’t think we’d been particularly rough when opening or shutting the door while we’d had the oven, which we bought new and which was only a few years old at the time.

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Hi Sarah,

I’ve just replaced the external glass on my St George oven (model no 904b) for the second time.
It’s a great oven but getting on a bit in years and has had a hard life. When we first moved into our place the outer glass had been replaced with sheet metal (and a hefty amount of silicone).

Unfortunately replacement glass was hideously expensive, but I managed to find a second hand oven with intact glass that I could use. (The second hand oven also had shards of glass inside it’s door cavity, so I’m guessing it had also had glass replaced at some stage). I’d also heard of people getting glaziers to cut furnace glass to size for them, but I couldn’t find any who would do it.

Replacement was not a quick job as the external glass actually makes up a structural part of the door, and nfortunately the replacement glass only lasted six weeks before shattering again (the oven was on but we were nowhere near it at the time). At this point I bit the bullet and bought new glass professionally installed.

The installer told me he didn’t usually see problems with broken glass on this particular oven, and issue may have been a scratch in the old glass, or a weakness resulting from the door clipping the top of the oven’s storage draw when opening it. We’ve adjusted the storage draw now and so far so good.

While there’s a two year warranty on my new door glass, the installer also told me it’s very difficult to get warranty support as it’s impossible to prove breakage was a result of a manufacturing fault an not user error.

If it breaks a third time I think I’ll be looking for a new oven, so I will be very interested to hear what experiences people have had with other brands.

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Glad to hear it was fixed for you! And my oven door shattered in similar circumstances - door was closed, oven was on.

That is interesting! You’d think the scope for ‘user error’ would be pretty limited - it’s a door, all you can do is open and close it.

Certain retailers and manufacturers seem to like to claim issues with their products are always due to user error, to avoid providing remedies under either warranties or the consumer law - pretty dodgy.

I’m guessing ‘user error’ in relation to oven glass would include dropping something heavy on the door while open, running into the door with something while closed, or spilling cold liquid on it whilst hot.
Given when tempered glass breaks it shatters into tiny fragments it’s a hard thing to prove either way.

Equally, ovens aren’t exactly cheap appliances, and there are significant safety issues relating to a kitchen floor suddenly covered in hot glass fragments (particularly if you have young children), so it’s not unreasonable to expect door glass breakage to be an exceptionally rare event.

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My daughter’s Bosch oven door shattered, but that was user error. Her fiancé was getting a dish out the oven and burnt his hand. Dish dropped onto the oven door and the glass broke. I would have hoped it would be more robust than that, but you could scarcely complain when you drop a weight onto glass…

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Many years ago, my user error was keeping the door closed while grilling…and the brand new oven door glass shattered…can’t remember the brand, but the company replaced it for free.

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We bought an Omega oven in 2012 and followed the instruction for ‘first use’. Nevertheless, the oven door shattered into 1000 pieces. Luckily, none of our children (then 1,3 an 5) or ourselves were in close proximity at the time, so no one got hurt.
Omega replaced the door for free without any hassle.

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We had to replace our Kleenmaid oven and the door was tested OK for maximum heating. However, shortly afterwards when heating for cooking the glass shattered. The repair man did not know why, but there is a possibility that the metal extension runners inside may not have been retracted and one may have touched the glass and caused the shattering when very hot. We cannot know, but this is the only explanation (other than faulty glass) that we can think of.

Have had to replace the glass once on our Fisher Paykel when my son left it closed with the griller on. User error.

Had a St George explode on me in 2010 at a rental premises, blowing out shattered glass everywhere.

Last night about 10pm the griller door shattered with a bang… the oven is a Westinghouse and is less than 12 months old… the griller or oven was not being used at the time,… oven had been used earlier in the evening but griller hasnt been used for about 4 days… and generally would be used only once or twice a week. it will be fixed under warranty

looking at comments across the internet this seems to be a fairly common problem across a range of brands…

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Just purchased a brand new Euro Gas oven and cooktop ESG800GUSX. Only 3 days old and the inside oven glass door exploded. While baking a cake !!!
Has any one else had issues with these brands exploding
We have contacted the retailer and they say they will replace it. which is OK But trying to find out if this is a common problem with Euro ovens. Never had this issue before

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Thanks for letting us know about the issue @modoblue :thumbsup:

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Yes me! I can safely say this is a common known problem with Euro Gas Ovens based on feedback received from Euro Appliances. The model I purchased was the eg800FS2, superseded around 4 years ago. It happened to me a while ago so I contacted Euro Head Office (South Australia) where I was advised it was a known issue but as our stove was out of warranty they offered to send out a new glass + postage at my cost. They also told me the new glass (outer glass) would be the updated version which has two metal strips on the top and bottom-I assume to reduce potential glass exploding. The glass that was delivered wasn’t the updated version. Not happy! Their other solution was to use a silicone thread locker when screwing the handle to the glass oven door to prevent movement which appeared to have caused the glass to explode. The top rack of their dishwasher I also purchased at the same time rusted. I will never purchase EURO again. I have also lodged a report with the ACCC thinking if they receive enough reports it will trigger someone to do something about this problem which I see is a common problem. If one of our animals or a toddler was near then they may have been hurt. Mind you the glass fragments were around 105 meters away from the oven and we found a few further than that.

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Yes but it was an older oven in rental property scared the crap outta me, had just taken something out too.

See below, according to google its common. New oven though probably manufacturing fault.

“One of the apparent reasons that oven door glasses can explode is a minute flaw that is an inherent consequence of the manufacturing process. When sheet glass is being rolled into the correct thickness using stainless-steel rollers, tiny (not visible with the naked eye) microscopic particles of stainless-steel containing nickel are pressed into the glass. Now, strange as it sounds, these tiny particles can ‘grow’ over a period of time and it is this ‘growth’ that changes the internal stress on the tempered glass causing it to suffer a ‘stress-fracture’ or, as we’re describing it here, an explosion.
The expression of ‘explosion’ being that which is typically used by home-owners who have witnessed this unfortunate experience … glass breaking with a loud bang.
Stress fractures can be caused almost inadvertently. Just a small, accidental tap against an oven shelf whilst closing the oven door or even a tiny scratch caused by a ‘foreign body’ in a cleaning cloth can cause tempered glass to shatter. Even a shopping bag full of groceries brushing an oven door; seems innocent enough at the time but may well be the catalyst creating catastrophe.
Tempered oven door glass is a very resilient material by design but even what seems to be the most innocuous knock can have disastrous consequences. What is extremely surprising however is that the glass may not shatter there and then. It can take a while to break from having been knocked or scratched. Hours, days or even weeks may go by before the change in stress levels alters to the point where the glass fails.”

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I suspect ‘105’ might be a typo, but if not would you mind posting a photo of your kitchen :wink:

Yes, my Danika 90cm all gas oven D59GGT 2014 model had a lose door handle and today the whole outer glass panel shattered into small pieces. My brother had been about to use and it frightened the life out of him (tidied that a bit). I am yet to find out if Danika or the store where it was purchased will replace the glass under warranty nearly 4 years after installation.

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