Comments on: Shattered

By: eszter

eszter — Fri, 30 Jul 2004 04:48:38 +0000

A friend of mine who stopped by today thought the window looks so neat and artistic that I should keep it as is! I’m looking into whether there is a warranty, but I find it unlikely, unfortunately. Thanks for all the suggestions!

By: Brey

Brey — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 17:51:36 +0000

My experience is that it’s most likely that there is a defect in the windows glass. I would call the manufacturer and ask for it to be replaced for free.

By: plastic

plastic — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 13:28:11 +0000

Money on hand in a checking account? How mid-20th century. Plastic, Eszter, plastic.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 06:28:32 +0000

Eszter, I’m assuming that you will “live long and prosper” ;) As regards empirical research, I don’t think anyone believes that the life-cycle consumption model is descriptively accurate at this level. Most people use some variant of the “mental accounts” model implicit in your post. This works reasonably well most of the time, though it’s hard to give a coherent justification for it. The trick is to select the right mental accounts. I’d suggest treating the window as an offset to the unrealised capital gains on your apartment, which should be pretty substantial in Chicago I think. Then you can spend your vacation account without any worries.

By: wood turtle

wood turtle — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 06:16:19 +0000

Once when I came home I heard a very loud crashing noise coming from the living room. There was a dying ruffed grouse lying on the love seat, and glass everywhere. The grouse had gone through the middle section of the picture window. It was during deer season, and I managed to get my husband on the phone at the shack to ask advice. But they were all half crocked and their advice was “Eat the grouse”, and I had no use for them. It was warm that day, but supposed to get cold the next. I took the outdoor type 3M plastic and put on an inside and an outside layer on the broken window, and the indoor type over the whole picture window. When my husband got back, it was too cold to change it, so we left it that way until spring, and the plastic worked out very well for keeping out the cold. So if you are ever in a situation where you can’t get the window fixed right away but have to deal with the weather, I recommend the 3M plastic.

By: Joel J. Hanes

Joel J. Hanes — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 05:56:06 +0000

We had a two-year-old picture window shatter in exactly the same way. It was stress, and the contractor who installed it agreed. The large overhanging bay in which it was installed had drooped unevenly, and had forced the window frame out of square.

By: lenq

lenq — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 05:48:29 +0000

when i was reading it, i was preparing for myself a story about how you ran home and encountered a bladed amateur ninja who broke into your place, and the ensuing battle destroyed virtually everything else in your home. oh well.

By: eszter

eszter — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 04:51:16 +0000

What kind of life expectancy are you giving me there, John?;) And what kind of empirical research exists on whether/how much people really think about current/future spending down to individual meals and other such relatively small expenditures? I can see it for something like a home purchase or a bigger item (I suspect partly due to limits put on how much one may borrow), but number of restaurant meals or books bought in any given future year? Tom T. – the window is still in the frame, the pieces haven’t fallen out yet. (Or did I misunderstand your question?)

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 04:05:39 +0000

Here’s the economic case for not changing your vacation plans (much). The broken window reduces your lifetime consumption by $500, so you could reasonably amortise this at $30/year, say one less restaurant meal. Or, if you expect rising future income, you could push the whole reduction in consumption into a future year. This points up your second lesson which is that this kind of smoothing is feasible only provided you are not cash-constrained, hence the need for accessible funds.

By: Tom T.

Tom T. — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 03:25:01 +0000

I take it that the window shattered inward?

By: eszter

eszter — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 03:14:19 +0000

My window isn’t at all accessible to someone throwing a rock or stone (except from the neighbor’s balcony, which I find highly unlikely to have been the source of the problem). The window is too high up and far from the street. So I don’t quite see how that could’ve been it. There is no mark of anything, so I did consider structural issues, but people who know better seem to disagree with that as a possibility.

By: J. Ellenberg

J. Ellenberg — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 02:27:26 +0000

Eszter—I agree, no stinting your vacation. Just pretend your window isn’t going to break until you get back!

By: andrew

andrew — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 01:59:50 +0000

I concur, a rock seems likely. I broke a few myself in such a manner before I’d been sufficiently socialized. And not-spending-money on a vacation is never the answer, IMO. Cash in a retirement account or something, instead…when you’re old you’ll have memories of wine, women (or men) and song to sustain you. :)

By: eszter

eszter — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 01:49:53 +0000

Laura – I think frequent travel was a prerequisite to joining CT.;) And in any case, I’ve only left for a couple of days in the last month.:) Eudoxies – Thanks. I should look into this, the panes are quite close.. and there was no evidence of anything hitting it (except that it broke:( ). Matt – Given the deductible on the insurance ($500, which is close to the amount it will cost to fix the window) it turns out that it’s not worth submitting a claim in this case especially since submitting claims often raises your future insurance costs. For now I’m looking into whether the condo association’s insurance will cover it since it is the outside pane and it may come under that coverage (although if that, too, has a similar deductible then it won’t be very helpful).

By: dipnut

dipnut — Thu, 29 Jul 2004 01:43:37 +0000

It is completely unclear what may have caused it... ...stress fracture... Stress fracture would radiate from the very edge of the pane, or exhibit a less orderly fracture with no obvious starting point. That there's a low-velocity impact fracture. A bird couldn't do that; it would take at least a toddler with a ball-peen hammer. Probably someone threw a rock, or shot your window with a wrist-rocket. Tempered glass has a lot of bounce; there's a wide range of impact energy which will shatter the glass but not penetrate it. So the projectile broke your window and bounced off.