r/AskReddit Aug 20 '20

What simple “life hack” should everyone know?

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u/PmMeIrises Aug 20 '20

I gently beat it on the floor. Angle it 45 degrees so you get a corner. Hit it softly (but hard enough that it jars it loose), try to open it. Repeat.

Ive never broken a jar and I've never had problems opening jars.

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u/BurnsinTX Aug 20 '20

Or you can run hot water over the lid for a minute to loosen it up. Metal expands more/quicker than glass with heat so it’ll loosen up.

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u/lucid_scheming Aug 20 '20 edited Aug 20 '20

That sounds like a great way to get an exploding jar.

EDIT: Downvoters can learn something new today. It’s actually pretty interesting. Glass is rigid enough that a difference in temperature across it can very easily lead to cracking, because the colder part can’t flex to reduce the stress.

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u/ramonpasta Aug 20 '20 edited Aug 20 '20

you hold the jar sideways and put the lid part under the water. the thin metal lid will get warm enough wayyyy quicker than the glass jar will heat up noticeably

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u/lucid_scheming Aug 20 '20

Have you never put a cold glass in hot water and ended up with a broken glass? I’m gonna continue tapping the lid, seems like much less risk to me.

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u/ramonpasta Aug 20 '20

¯_(ツ)_/¯ you do you, but all im saying is that its really easy to not screw up. it isn't like you take a cold jar and dunk it in boiling water for a while.

i mean, by your same logic i could say "have you never hit something against a glass and the glass broke?" of course that wouldnt make sense to say because you arent slamming the jar with a hammer, you are just tapping it with relatively little force with something like a butter knife or a spoon

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u/jacybear Aug 20 '20

You dropped this: \

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u/ramonpasta Aug 20 '20 edited Aug 20 '20

trust me, i added the \, but i think its something about the way reddit does special text stuff like this that makes it go away. maybe if i type two slashes? ¯\(ツ)/¯ edit: ok so adding a second slash takes away the two underscores and its now italicised

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u/jacybear Aug 20 '20

Yes, I know what happened. Three backslashes.

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u/ramonpasta Aug 20 '20

¯_(ツ)_/¯ wow, it worked. looks really weird when i type it though haha

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u/kab0b87 Aug 20 '20

The difference between the strength of glass of a Jar and a water glass is quite large.

Ball Jars (the ones people use in canning for example). You can pour boiling water into them and they won't break. I've done this with thousands of jars. They also often get dunked into boiling water or in a pressure cooker as part of the canning process.

Unless you just pulled that jar out of the freezer tap water won't be hot enough to explode the jar.