I always try to use just luke warm water when I'm washing the glass shelves. Ideally, the instructions suggest using cold water on cold shelves, but when you have gunk stuck to the shelf it's a little hard to get it off with cold water.
I had gotten 90% of the fridge cleaned when I started on the bottom shelf, you know, the big piece of glass that covers the crisper drawers. It's so big it barely fits into the sink. As I was scrubbing away, I thought to myself, 'Knowing my luck, I'm going to end up breaking this thing-since this is the piece that would be the most expensive to replace'. Not even 5 minutes later this is what happened:
It just shattered-everywhere. Into my hands, down my shirt, into the sink, windowsill, and on the floor.
It kills me. I've been cleaning out fridges since I was 12 and have never had this happen.
So, I drug out the shop vac and proceeded to clean up the mess. Unbeknownst to me, the valve on the vacuum that covers the hole where the air blows out was missing and I ended up blowing saw dust (from my last project) all over the kitchen. That really made this experience all the more enjoyable.
I finally had to have Kory come and hold a wadded up towel in the hole while I vaccumed everything up. *Don't ever loan out your shop vac to your husbands work-it will come back missing pieces.
Although I guess I should just be happy that I got it back!
Once I had cleaned up the fiasco I had to hop in the shower because I had tiny little shards of glass and sawdust all over me. I got a couple little scratches on my hands, and some on my chest, but that was it-thankfully.
Here's the fridge looking all nice and pertty. It's a little hard to tell it's missing the bottom piece of glass, but let me assure you-it is.
I think I will just have a glass cutter here in town do it. Maybe I should get plexiglass?
So, what have we learned from this?
1). It's a bad idea to clean out your fridge.
2). It's a bad idea to clean out your fridge on the Sabbath.
3). Even if you think the water is really not warm enough to shatter cold glass-it probably is.
4). Make sure the cap the covers the blower on your shop vac is securely in place before you start it up-especially when the vac is full of sawdust.