cracked window this weekend - who is to blame/pay?

Hi,

To my horror this weekend my double-glazed window cracked with no apparent reason. Image link below.

The crack is on the inside glass, not the outside. I am the only person occupying my flat, so I know it has not been hit from the inside. When you look at it, you can see that the crack originates from the frame. It splinters into three different directions

It just happened. Looking at the posts here, looks like it is thermal shock. Any views? The sun was really beating down on it this weekend when it happened.

My issue is that I only had it installed 2 years ago. I also have buildings insurance and home insurance. As the window cost £460 two years ago and I have buildings and contents insurance, I was hoping that at the end of the day, it was not going to be me forking out another £460 so soon. I suspect that as is usual in life, nobody will want to pay. So here are the options.

1) The window did come with a guarantee. I quote "Glass Units. 5 year guarantee. Sealed unit guarantee does not include breakage or cracking of sealed units." So, it doesn't include cracking. Pretty useless guarantee then right?

2) Buildings insurance. I could ring them on this one, I am not going to lie to them either. Presumably me saying the truth like "It cracked for no give reason, probably thermal shock" is not going to be in their terms. So, presumably likely I will be told to sling my hook.

3) Contents insurance. Presumably contents insurance is irrelevant.

All this leaves me with a bitter taste. It would appear to me that nobody is going to cough up for it. This sucks when you consider that I bought a new double glazed window at £460 only two years ago and it now has a 3 foot crack across it that was not my fault in any way and I have my window guarantee and buildings/contents insurance in hand. I am thinking it is going to be me spending another £460.

Anyone know if you can get insurance to cover this sort of thing? I am not spending all that money again for it to go and happen in another 2 years without the reassurance of legitimate insurance in place.

Thanks for any help.

Rupert.

I can't offer an opinion about "who" will pay, but the glass unit should be replaceable at about £50 if you DIY.

Yea exactly, just stump up the £50 or so to fix it and move on with your life.

Personally I would say its fairly obvious that the cracks originated from behind the beading so unlikely to have been caused by an impact. More likely to have been an small imperfection at the edge of the glass or a screw/packer that combined with thermal expansion/contraction has caused the crack. Proving it 100% would be impossible though.
As mentioned above it will be less than £50 to diy replace the glass unit but its worth contacting the fitters first, It depends how nice the guys are and their suppliers.
I know my suppliers would send me out a new unit free of charge but weather or not I would fit it for free without 99% being sure it wasn't impacted would depend on several factors, Mainly on things like time and labor to come and measure/fit it, I would probably want to at least cover these costs unless you were very local.
Give them a try and see what they say, If they arnt sounding cooperative ask "nicely" if they would just supply the unit (for free of course) if you measure it and fit it. We can talk you through those bits here if needs be.

Michal001 said:

I bet that window was toughened, wasn't it ?
It is common issue with toughened glass. It happens glass breaks with no "physical" reason.
Toughened glass has higher density than standard and its tension cause breaks like this.
Guarantee exclude everything beside tightness (% of Ar must be higher than 85%, if lower - free replacement).

In my opinion the simplest way is to replace broken glass with new one And if it don't kill your budged, let the professional do it for yourself.

Click to expand...

That's not toughened glass though is it, agree that toughened glass is in constant tension which can result in one of the panes from popping but toughened glass shatters into thousands of little pieces, the glass in the picture is just float glass, toughened should have a kite mark in one of the corners if the op wants to check.

The glass has most probably broken due to what's known as 'thermal break'

http://www.thewindowman.co.uk/explode.htm

The comment 'the simplest way is to replace broken glass with a new one' made me smile - isn't that the only way?

You could claim on your buildings insurance, and you don't have to lie. You don't know for sure how it cracked, so your answer would be 'I don't know how it happened' !

But if a new unit is only £50 I'd probably just pay myself to avoid losing any no claims

The moral of the story is "**** happens".

Any insurance claim is going to bump up future premiums and then there is the excess. There is no blame and no claim. Move on.

Good luck getting the company that supplied/fitted the window to replace the sealed unit. ( It is only the unity that needs replacing not the whole frame...)..After two years proving that was a fault of the company will be nigh on impossible.... as Woody says S*** happens ....unfortunately

Thanks for eveyone's comments. I agreed with the window company to just pay for the replacement glass - £78. So they are letting me off the labour cost. I think it is a fair compromise. I mean cracks are not covered under warranty, but they know as well as I do, (without openly admitting it) that this should not have happened. So we are meeting halfway on it, which I think is reasonable.

And like you say, just get it replaced and get on with my life! At the start of this thread, in my ignorance, I thought that you would have to have the whole frame replaced, which is why I was pretty grumpy. However, realising that it is just the glass, well £78 ain't much. The whole frame was a lot more.

Thanks again.