Randy Holmes-Farley
Reef Chemist
Staff member
Super Moderator
Excellence Award
Expert Contributor
Article Contributor
R2R Research
My Tank Thread
While planning an event for the 25th birthday for one of my daughters, I had the not too bright idea to convert an unused freezer in the basement into a temp refrigerator to store beverages.
I set it to its highest possible temp setting, loaded it up, and forgot to check later that it didn’t get too cold.
Later that night, my wife and I jumped out of bed to a loud bang. No car wreck out front, no bears on the deck, no idea what it was.
Next morning, checking the freezer, I found the sound source. Twelve glass bottles of club soda had exploded in a huge mess of broken glass and ice.
Nothing else broke. Wine, beer, even hard seltzers in cans, and the breakage was nothing like water in glass that I’ve accidentally frozen in the past, with a simple break that cracks the glass from ice expansion.
What I expect happened is that the club soda began to freeze, forming water ice that excluded CO2 from the ice and compressed it more and more into the remaining liquid water and air.
At some point, the pressure on one of them broke the glass and caused a chain reaction explosion breaking them all open. I’m not sure how much water froze in the bottles before it blew, since it was such a jumbled mess afterward.
Moral of the story: try to not do stupid things
Second moral: CO2 can pack quite a punch!
Happy Reefing!
I set it to its highest possible temp setting, loaded it up, and forgot to check later that it didn’t get too cold.
Later that night, my wife and I jumped out of bed to a loud bang. No car wreck out front, no bears on the deck, no idea what it was.
Next morning, checking the freezer, I found the sound source. Twelve glass bottles of club soda had exploded in a huge mess of broken glass and ice.
Nothing else broke. Wine, beer, even hard seltzers in cans, and the breakage was nothing like water in glass that I’ve accidentally frozen in the past, with a simple break that cracks the glass from ice expansion.
What I expect happened is that the club soda began to freeze, forming water ice that excluded CO2 from the ice and compressed it more and more into the remaining liquid water and air.
At some point, the pressure on one of them broke the glass and caused a chain reaction explosion breaking them all open. I’m not sure how much water froze in the bottles before it blew, since it was such a jumbled mess afterward.
Moral of the story: try to not do stupid things
Second moral: CO2 can pack quite a punch!
Happy Reefing!
shows we are all human. Thanks for the story it tickled me.
