Alan and his wife awoke to a giant crash from their bathroom. Their 3.5′x5′ plate glass mirror they had professionals install 12 years ago had fallen, shattering all over the tile.
When he called up the company they had bought it from and that had installed it, using only glue and no support clips, the glass guys couldn’t care less. (According to the Glass Association of North America, if glue is used it must be approved for mirror use, and fastening devices should always be used in conjunction with the glue.
) With no apologies or expressions of concern, they said it rarely happens and Alan should have been inspecting it all this time. Perhaps humidity played a factor, they postulated. Yes, perhaps while it was in the bathroom where people shower and bathe it came into contact with moisture. Ace detective work.
Alan asked if the installer would pay for a new mirror. The company said they would pay for 10% of it.
Alan says he will soon be putting support clips on all his mirrors, including the new one for the bathroom, which he will not be purchasing from the glass company.
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Man drives truck through mirror installer’s living room, shrugs.
Normally you’d get seven years bad luck, I can get you five.
I’m just glad nobody was hurt.
I am a glass installer (glazier) it looks like they used construction adhesive. the right mirror glue is black. secondly its never a good idea to put glass on a ceiling. it been done but it will always fall sonner or later. even if the glue had held the paper on the drywall wont hold forever.
Who puts these in bathrooms? I thought the bedroom was where these belonged? (insert lots of eyebrow waggling)
come on man…this guy is a loser if he expects anything after 12 years, 10% is more than gracious. Whether with or without clips 12 years is a long time.
12 years you CALLED??? do you think everything comes with lifetime warranty?
Yawn. This is a lame article.
12 years is a long time, but if they negligently installed the mirror in a dangerous manner their liability doesn’t just expire.
Sure it does! Apparently, mirrors are falling off walls all the time in the other posters’ houses. Just comes with the territory.
So what is the written warranty period on the labor?
I guess I’m in the minority here, but I side with the OP. I think the thing to remember about this is expectation. With appliances, cars, etc, there’s an expectation of maintenance and that there’s a limited lifetime for those things. A car lasts about a decade before it’s in the best interest of the owner to get a new one.
I think mirrors are different. NO ONE expects for their mirror to come crashing down off the wall. Why? Because it doesn’t happen that often! Obviously, most contractors do this the right way. Otherwise, there’d be more cases of falling mirrors, and people would be saying, “I’d better replace my 12 year old mirror. I just know it’s going to fall soon.”
I think that it happened 12 years ago is immaterial. I don’t necessarily think that 100 years is reasonable, but 12 definitely is. The mirror in my parents’ house has been there for at least 40 years. It’s not like the OP’s mirror was installed 70 years ago.
Again, I think this is about expectation. It’s a reasonable expectation that a mirror installed today will still be on the wall 12 years from now.
if they screwed up the install, they should be responsible for damages
however, equipment and parts do fail from time to time, and the fact that its been there for over a decade with no other problems could just mean tough luck for him
all warrantied work expires sometime
This reminds me of the people on ripoff report who buy a 12 year old car with 500,000 miles on it and then think they have been really done wrong when after 6 months it needs repairs. 12 years ago I was in much better shape than I am today – who should I blame?
It was up for 12 years. How could they expect a company to fix it for free?
Why has no one considered that the homeowner may have a far more serious problem?
Mastic alone is a poor installation because it cannot accommodate changes — settling can seriously warp a wall. Clips would still support the mirror because each one moves independently, but the mastic would be trying to hold a rigid plane against a moving one and is bound to fail.
Don’t be surprised if a few years from now the homeowner begins screaming because of cracks in the walls or ceilings.
Okay, most mirror and glass manufacturers recommend you use clips or some other support for mirrors, but it’s far from universally done unless you are ion a jurisdiction where the building inspectors require it. I’d say few than 5% of the homes I’ve been in with the large mirrors that were really popular about 10 years ago are supported by clips. In many instances just the fact that the mirror is supported by the backsplash on the sink is considered enough. It’s often the case that what the manufacturer suggests is completely overridden by what the designer demands. Mirror clips tend to either be there really ugly plastic things or small pieces of steel channel that would have started to rust after 10-12 years anyways.
The only thing I do see in the picture is that they used nowhere near enough adhesive, just puddled it on instead of using a notched trowel(a common shortcut), and while I can’t say for sure but it looks like liquid nails and not mirror mastic was used…definitely a big no no.
Their bathroom looks a lot newer than 12 years old.
Feces occurs. This is a novel problem and may even be something for small claims court. But seriously, who would have the time for 12 year old install?
If I was the OP, I would have counter-offered a free install if I purchased the replacement from them… That would seem reasonable.
This happened in the main upstairs bathroom at my house. My brother was alone in the house, in his room near the bathroom, when it happened. It scared the crap out of him and he locked his door and cowered in his room for two hours, holding a giant Mag-Light like some kind of weapon. Obviously not funny… Except to an older brother.
Didn’t think to blame the company that installed it twenty years before.
What would the statute of limitations for a lawsuit have been if fell on someone?
it was 12 years ago !!!!
I would not have offered them the 10%
the installer did not perform his job in a workmanlike manner, probably did not follow building or safety code, and, regardless of how long it’s been, that does not change the fact he did not do his job properly and that the mirror broke as a result, it would not have broken otherwise and the direct cause was the installer’s poor installation work, with clips, it does not fall
I’m surprised the original contractor was still in business, and gave the OP the time of day…
12 years? let me sue the builder of my condo of 20 years and 5 owners ago for the titles in my kitchen for being crappy.
A new high water mark in mundanity?
How stupid is this that they are complaining about work done 12 years ago, surprised the company is still in business. This isn’t the businesses fault, the homeowner should call their property insurance company if they want someone else to pay for the mirror. Just remember, their rates will then go up, oh and there is a deductible.
After all that the offer of 10% from the company may actually be cheaper than filing an insurance claim.
I really can’t side with the customer on this one… 12 years is just far too long to hold a company liable for something like this.
It seems that the owner was also aware that the mirror was installed using only glue, and no clips. If that was the case, why wouldn’t he have just installed the clips himself at some point during those 12 years?
Seriously…12 years ago? Come on Consumerist, how does this rate notice? You damage your collective credibility posting stuff like this.
I agree the the note about humidity. I have known lots of people who never use the bathroom fan when in the shower. That builds up a lot more humidity than a lot of fixtures are meant to handle and will damage the bathroom. As a side note 10% is a reasonable offer. The home owner has received 12 years of value out of this mirror.
I can’t believe I’m actually taking the op’s side with everything that has been posted here lately, but if you install something incorrectly and because of that it fails, you’re liable regardless of the amount of time that has passed. If you know anything about this stuff, you’ll know that it is a freakin’ miracle that it lasted twelve years just being glued to the wall. This guy probably paid a decent amount of money for them to install it too, and they just ended up using a quarters worth of glue. Completely unacceptable.
Pay for 10%? After 12 years, I’d expect no rebate and wouldn’t even contact the installer. If you don’t regularly inspect your own home, you shouldn’t own one. What happened to make us all expect someone else to take responsibility for our own mistakes? This country used to value self reliance.
I thought for sure that the installer dropped the mirror while installing it and then refused to pay for it. However, what really happens is the OP wants us to be sad that the mirror broke after 12 years and he even states that it didn’t have support clips, meaning he knew it should have and was too lazy to put any support clips on himself.