Five million tumble driers?!
 

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. :p: 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. :rolleyes:

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

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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).

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Don't hold your breath.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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

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

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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!

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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!

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Which? magazine gave some stats last year...

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

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

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.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Of course, but as we have seen, 5 million tumble driers (admittedly, some may not be in service now) DO have a fire causing defect and is a problem going back 10 years. Despite this, the rate of failure/fire rate is still low, but that doesn't mean something shouldn't be done.

Besides, I'm not one for complacency. There's way more TV sets, just as many fridges, freezers, and cookers in use in the UK and all of these devices cause less fires yet see comparable amount of use. Considering that washing machines and tumble driers consistently have been the top causes of accidental houses fires, it is high time to look into additional safety measures. After all, it may "only" be 3,000 fires, but the cost of these fires in monetary and human costs is very high indeed.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

I'm surprised that phone chargers and ecig chargers don't make the top of the chart. And the now infamous "hoverboards".

---------- Post added at 16:49 ---------- Previous post was at 15:44 ----------

Found it!

http://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org...hing-machines/

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Those stats only add up to 72% , wonder what's the monster thing they forgot that accounts for the missing 28%

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

I wouldn't have a tumble drier in the main house, they've always been a dangerous item. People don't clear out the filters every time like they are supposed to, so sometimes are partly responsible themselves (not that won't stop them blaming or making a claim on someone else).

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Update: https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAnedtO?m=en-gb

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

That is the biggest problem, they just stick wash after wash in and then blame the company when something goes wrong.

That said there should be a sensor to prevent overheating.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

We have not got one either praise be to god and that stance will not be changing.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

We do, and ours was affected, and was fixed pretty quickly, we do however employ that thing called 'Common Sense'

This means understanding difficult concepts like:

Empty the condenser (if fitted) everytime
Pull out the filter thing and clean it - every time
Empty the bottom filter quarterly

Then the REALLY advanced stuff like:

Don't run it when in bed
Don't run it when not present

Honestly it's not rocket science, it's no more dangerous than any other appliance, and a useful tool. Well so long as the owner isn't one...

Dumbed down Britain in spades creates issues like this, nothing else.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

You would have thought these oh so clever boffins would have thought of that.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

I guess that adds cost.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Washing lines don't catch fire and are a lot cheaper to run. :)

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Indeed but repairing millions of tumble dryers will incur a pretty high cost as well.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Indeed, but not much cop between Nov & March.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Very true :) But you do need to be able to afford a garden. :)

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

I must be lucky I have both shhhh :)

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Yes you certainly are.:)

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Well yes but that is not always possible ,you can't peg your washing out in a high rise flat ,i believe that was a scene one such dryer fire and believe it or not some councils and housing associations don't allow clothes lines ,although that is rare in the UK it is common place in the USA

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

That particular model did have an overheat sensor. Overheating under expected operating conditions wasn't the problem; there was a design flaw that allowed lint trapped in the appliance body to get hot enough to ignite. In that regard yesterday's MSN article is ridiculously sensationalised. The driers never exploded, they smouldered and, in the worst cases, caught fire.

We applied to the recall programme this time last year and were offered a £99 replacement in April, which we took. The new model is great, much larger capacity than the old one and much more efficient too.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

l am glad it was sorted out for you Chris :tu: as the main reason we don't have one is our kitchen is not that much bigger then a galley sadly.:(

As one of the others posters said a sensor is certainly a excellent idea and one hopes it will be adopted by all the manufacturers in time.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

I caught wind of it from very early on, our model was large capacity and new, ours was fixed umm ages ago, some poor sods have had to wait a long time though, as demand was very high and not everyone realised for some time how to get it fixed.

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Also be aware that if you have a free standing Bosch or Neff gas cooker it could blow up!!! Manufactured January 2009 and October 2011.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...h-neff-9842485

---------- Post added at 19:41 ---------- Previous post was at 19:39 ----------

Put my washing out today and it ended up in Holland....

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Not when there is frost and snow...

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Schiphol usually closes the moment someone farts :D

Re: Five million tumble driers?!
 

Took them 11 months to sort mine.