Five million tumble driers?!

[Anonymouse]

Apparently tumble driers all over the UK are catching fire due to a design flaw - link.

However, the Mirror's got something wrong - there has been a recall. I know this for a fact...because we loaded 83 driers, all with recall stickers on them, onto a trailer this morning, sending them back to the Crewe site. From there, they'll presumably be sent back to the manufacturer.

Our job at the Heywood depot is to:

Load an empty trailer with scrapped appliances, waste (i.e. packaging) and returned items/failed deliveries for return to Crewe;

Unload a full trailer when it arrives from Crewe, load its contents onto the delivery vans...and then load any recalled items onto the trailer.

This last has been happening for a few weeks now, and we've been sending out shedloads of Hotpoint driers - presumably replacements. That's good for us, as they're lighter than washers and thus easier to handle. But it wasn't until I saw a note on one drier saying 'Do not use - fire risk!' that we found out why they were being recalled. So far, every drier we've received as recalled has been a Hotpoint, although apparently Whirlpool now own the Hotpoint, Indesit and Creda brands.

Actually it gets a bit confusing when we're loading stuff and we're looking for a Candy washer...only to discover the washer in question is a Hoover. They all seem to own each other.

So there's the skinny from someone in the know.

[beeman]

Deffenatly not new, i got my recall notice in November as (should) have everyone that filled out the warrenty card (assuming they've not moved house).

[techguyone]

We checked our serial and ours is one affected, we haven't (sadly) been offered a replacement though, for us -one day- an engineer will come along and replace something.

Maybe.

[Ken W]

Originally Posted by techguyone

We checked our serial and ours is one affected, we haven't (sadly) been offered a replacement though, for us -one day- an engineer will come along and replace something.

Maybe.

Don't hold your breath.

[tweedle]

Ours is effected, we've been offered the choice of...

1 A repair sometime in April.
2 A brand new tumble dryer for £99.

[richard s]

I found a design flaw in the Beko Tumble dryer we purchased. Two months outside the warranty it started a clanking noise and the belt snapped. After taking it apart I discovered that there is a steel round plate located at the back of the drum with 8 lugs on it which locates into the stainless steel drum. These had worn to an almond shape (with the foward and backward motion of the drum). Solution was to use metal weld on the two surfaces, leave it for 24 hours to dry. It has now been ok for two years.

This could have caused a fire.

Rule No 1. never go out or go to bed while machine is on.

[data0002]

ours is one of the recalled one's, but was repaired last week, i did their website back in November, when it was first on BBC watchdog, all they did was put a new back on with a wider foam bit and put in a rivet in the drum to clear the fluff away took about an hour to do

[techguyone]

As said previously this is quite important. I suspect these days not everyone follows this.

Rule No 1. never go out or go to bed while machine is on.

[Taf]

I've just watched BBC report on all this and they had a guy in who works for an "electrical safety" website.

"Check our database for information and recall information....."

But they didn't give out the web address!

[Stop It]

Originally Posted by techguyone

As said previously this is quite important. I suspect these days not everyone follows this.

Rule No 1. never go out or go to bed while machine is on.

This applies for Washing Machines as well as Tumble Driers.

Between them they cause around 25% of all house fires (According to NFU mutual: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/b...ppliances.html)

That said, 25% of claims were caused by Dishwashers, which is partially why I am the dishwasher in our household!

Originally Posted by Stop It

This applies for Washing Machines as well as Tumble Driers.

Between them they cause around 25% of all house fires (According to NFU mutual: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/b...ppliances.html)

That said, 25% of claims were caused by Dishwashers, which is partially why I am the dishwasher in our household!

Which? magazine gave some stats last year...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33124925

Which appliances caused the most fires?
14% washing machines (1,723)
12% tumble dryers (1,456)
11% dishwashers (1,324)
9% cookers (1,080)
7% fridges / freezers (861)
5% central heating (606)
4% toasters / grills (495)
4% microwaves (427)
3% TVs (372)
2% washer dryers (225)
1% irons (92)

(Proportion and number of fires caused by faulty appliances between January 2011 and March 2014 based on government fire data.)

Source: Which?

[techguyone]

Hrmm I'm quite surprised about washers, seeing as they even have a delay timer on them so you can put em on when you're at work etc.
Apart from the freezer/central heating, nothing else needs to be on when you're not in though.

[solitaire]

Originally Posted by tweedle

Ours is effected, we've been offered the choice of...

1 A repair sometime in April.
2 A brand new tumble dryer for £99.

We are in the same situation, except that our repair date is May.

[Stop It]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Which? magazine gave some stats last year...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33124925

Thanks, I think that shows that there is a correlation between owning a dishwasher and having home insurance!

On a semi related note, the lack of fires caused by irons nowadays is interesting. The days of accidentally leaving an iron/leaving it on clothing and it going boom are well and truly gone.

Surely better safety measures need to be fitted on large white goods like Washing Machines and Tumble Driers. The fire figures they cause is too high to just accept as it stands.

tbf, 2,600,000 washing machines are sold in the UK each year, so if we conservatively estimate that most last about five years, that's a washing machine population of 13,000,000.

According to the linked stats, there were 1,723 washing machines stated at causing a fire over a period of 39 months, so that's about 530 per year, or around 1 in 24,528, or to put it another way, 0.00004% per year.

Whilst any household fires are bad, the likelihood is very low.