Dangerous Tumble Dryers

Ours was one. Put in for the "amendment" and was put on a waiting list that was 9 months long. As the time got closer we caved and paid  them £99 to switch to one of their condensers. Sure enough, it's also a fire risk. Have lost the will to live with it. Basically it only goes on when we're in the house.

 How dangerous is dangerous.

You’ve probably more chance of getting killed driving to Curry’s to buy a new one than continuing to use one of the dangerous models.

And I wouldn’t mind betting more house fires are cause by the use of candles than dangerous tumble dryers.

Although in saying that, if I owned a faulty dryer, I’d probable take it to bits and attempt to make it safe. Which would probably be more dangerous than leaving it alone.

There's a petition to call on the government to urge Whirlpool to recall the faulty dryers.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/169835

Wasn't it the "fluff" in the filters catching fire because they weren't being cleaned/cleared?

We had one of the affected dryers and found that Whirpool acted very well.

In our case we saw this in the news and verified that our dryer was affected using the online checker which logged a call with Whirpool.

We immediately received advice not to use it unattended (difficult when it is in the garage!) and a few weeks later received an apology as to the time it was taking to resolve.  In this letter they offered to keep us on the waiting list or replace with a brand new machine for £99.  This included, delivery, installation and removal of the old machine.

We jumped at this as our machine was almost 10 years old and was probably on borrowed time anyway.  It wasn't a particularly high model, costing around £180 when new.  A new machine (approx £300 new price) was promptly delivered and changed over.

The new machine is miles better, being more eco friendly and autosensing, I'm sure we will get back the £99 in saved energy in a few years.

The problem with the old design is that fluff can accumulate round the element of the machine and catch fire.  This can occur even if the filters are cleaned regularly.  The new one has a very different filter whereby once caught, the fluff cannot easily escape.

Richard

I have a friend who, came home one day and, as normal, parked in her driveway.  As she got out of the car, she saw the tumble drier exiting the house through the back door, trailing flames and smoke, shortly followed by her partner.  He so incompetent that, having made sure that the tumble drier wasn't going to set fire to the garden, she walked past him and straight back into the house.  This was the 5th tumble drier he'd assassinated in just 7 years, so she wasn't really that surprised by the incident!

We were contacted 2 days ago offering a £99 replacement. One looks to be a piece of sh*t, one sort o OK and two equivalent to ours. Only the sh*t one is in stock and the others are apparently permanently 'back in stock soon'. Meanwhile avg waiting time for a repair is xxx months...

Text today offering repair appt next week

Clearly moving faster now.

I got a much better one for 99 quid than the one we had, which was only a year old anyway.  We mainly got it because the fix date was a crazy amount of time away

Ours is a decent model and doesn't need replacing. On the £99 offers, only the cheap and nasty one is in stock and the others are showing 'back in stock soon'. According to reports I've seen that's pretty much a permanent situation. But we can get the current one fixed so it's all fine...

Here's the government's response to the petition actioning them to recall Whirlpool tumble dryers.

https://petition.parliament.uk...?reveal_response=yes

I was the owner of an affected unit. Registered the fault on their system some 2 years ago, when details were first announced. Put on a list and heard nothing.

a month ago saw a new notice about the dryers do re registered the number and was contacted with a fix date and works done yesterday to correct the fault.

Repair chap came this morning and fixed ours, 17 days after I registered it online (they contacted us for repair date 9 days after registering). Quite interesting chatting to him and seeing what the actual issue is and how it's arisen and been dealt with.

This is all he does at the moment and he chooses to work most Saturdays, doing 5 jobs each time, on double pay. Figures he's got another 18 months of this. He gets asked to go to different parts of the country as needed and is put up in hotels, food paid for etc. He's happy with his work and was very efficient ( I think he could have disassembled and re-assembled that machine just as easily with his eyes shut). I can't help but feel though it would have been cheaper simply to replace the machines!

He did say that virtually every machine they made between 2004 and 2015 is affected (close on 4 million of them), no matter what the original statements about model types put out were and about 2M haven't contacted them yet (and that's after a reduction in potential numbers allowing for older, worn out machines). So, as mentioned above, if you're unsure or thought you were sure about whether yours is affected or not, it's a good idea to check again.

Huge posted:

I have a friend who, came home one day and, as normal, parked in her driveway.  As she got out of the car, she saw the tumble drier exiting the house through the back door, trailing flames and smoke, shortly followed by her partner.  He so incompetent that, having made sure that the tumble drier wasn't going to set fire to the garden, she walked past him and straight back into the house.  This was the 5th tumble drier he'd assassinated in just 7 years, so she wasn't really that surprised by the incident!

What does he do that wrecks tumble driers? I don't get it.

fatcat posted:

 How dangerous is dangerous.

You’ve probably more chance of getting killed driving to Curry’s to buy a new one than continuing to use one of the dangerous models.

And I wouldn’t mind betting more house fires are cause by the use of candles than dangerous tumble dryers.

Although in saying that, if I owned a faulty dryer, I’d probable take it to bits and attempt to make it safe. Which would probably be more dangerous than leaving it alone.

 

The sausage again fails to convey meaning.

Mike Hughes posted:

Ours was one. Put in for the "amendment" and was put on a waiting list that was 9 months long. As the time got closer we caved and paid  them £99 to switch to one of their condensers. Sure enough, it's also a fire risk. Have lost the will to live with it. Basically it only goes on when we're in the house.

What is a "condenser" in this context?

winkyincanada posted:

Huge posted:

I have a friend who, came home one day and, as normal, parked in her driveway.  As she got out of the car, she saw the tumble drier exiting the house through the back door, trailing flames and smoke, shortly followed by her partner.  He so incompetent that, having made sure that the tumble drier wasn't going to set fire to the garden, she walked past him and straight back into the house.  This was the 5th tumble drier he'd assassinated in just 7 years, so she wasn't really that surprised by the incident!

What does he do that wrecks tumble driers? I don't get it.

Packs clothes in until the drum is physically full, restricting airflow and causing them to overheat.