Does anyone have any experience replacing the glass in a sliding door? Ours shattered last night, its still intact, but a complete spider web. I taped both sides and am not going to use it to prevent it from coming apart. Now we are looking at the cheapest possible fixes. The door is shorter than standard so finding a used replacement is unlikely. We are thinking about getting a sheet of plastic from Tap Plastic and using that for the short term. Does anyone have any experience with something like this, or advice? How hard is it to rebuild a glass door?
Thanks!

[The door is shorter than standard so finding a used replacement is unlikely.]

What are you comparing the standard you mentioned? If it is a new door that you looked at for comparison then you may be wrong. Older doors may have been smaller than newer doors they make now. I found a sliding door at a place like Habitat for Humanity, it needed only minor adjustments to replace. Of course, it depends on how old your house is, also. I have an older home built in the 50's. Good luck.

Our house was built in the 30's, has some interesting additions and a very low ceiling where the door is. The total opening is only 72 inches high, the off the shelf doors are made for an 80 inch opening. I am going to ReStore (Habitat for Humanity) on Wednesday, but the last few times I've been there I only see hugely tall doors. I think if we just replace the glass with plastic I'll need a piece 67 3/4 inches. But I'm guessing as to how much is cased in the frame.

I'm going to go ahead and post to freecycle too. Maybe I'll get lucky.

If you can, try to pull, pry or otherwise loosen a piece of the trim/frame/glazing that secures the window in the door-frame. If you can measure how much glass is covered by that trim/frame/glazing, then you can pretty well guess the covered dimensions are the same all the way around. And you will have an idea about the practicality of removing the old window, and mounting a new one--or if you might need to Disney Engineer a way to do so. :o

YMMV, and invariably will...
Connfederate (BS, Mickey Mouse Engineering with honors, Disney University circa 1977)

If the door with the broken glass is the same size as the other glass door you can do on that one what Confederate says and measure the glass to get the measurement. You only need to do that with one side of the glass. This will give you the amount of glass inside the frame & glazing. 1) Measure the inside width of the door (from the side of the frame where glass goes into it to the other side of frame where the glass goes into it) 2) measure the overall width of the glass 3) subtract the inside width of the frame from the width of the glass 4) the remainder is the amount inside the frame. (typically 1/2 to 1 inch depending on door size). Do that for both width and height. You can order a new piece of glass from any glass distributor but make sure it is tempered. Tempered is what makes it spiderweb like you have. It is a safety feature to prevent large slabs of glass from slicing you in half if it were to break while you were near it. Another option is to take the frame in to the glass shop and they can measure it for you. One thing to remember is that the measurement has to be accurate because tempered glass cannot be cut down to fit.

When replacing the glass make sure to not rip the glazing (rubber stuff around the glass). You will need it to replace the glass, unless you want to buy new. You will need a rubber mallet to gently tap the frame onto the glass (after putting the glazing around it).

Thank you both for your advice. I ended up taking it to a local glass shop and they are going to it for me. It'll will be under $200 - ouch, but doable. We were worried that it would cost twice that. Normally I'd try to do it on my own, but the glass was broken to all the edges and the minute I tried taking it apart I knew it would be impossible to keep it together. In the past when we've had to replace window panes there is usually more breakage before we are done. I'm paying to spare myself more damage. The good news is the new stuff will be tempered and the kids won't be able to break it so easily. Now I need to find some nice window decals...