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Tumble Dryer Fires


Keith

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Something we've discussed in the past and probably thought had been resolved, however after further investigations by Watchdog and Which? it would appear that are still concerns over the safety of some Whirlpool Brand tumble dryers, including Hotpoint, Creda and Indesit following fires involving both new and modified machines. 

Details Fresh fears over danger tumble dryers and the report on the BBC iplayer

Has anyone either attended a fire involving one of the machines or do you own one and have experienced problems with it?

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  • 1 month later...

I was doing a repair on a relatives tumble dryer and given the build up of lint, I'm surprised we don't actually attend a lot more tumble dryer fires.

  228416617_Tumble2.thumb.jpg.12836f0253afbf4cb64571251bea5aed.jpg   2131828326_Tumble1.thumb.jpg.e47c20b48e1b9322a3d3390fffa08f71.jpg

Granted you won't normally have access to these parts, but I'm guessing it would be quite typically. Its not one of the models listed above and thankfully the heater element is well protected.  Certainly a reminder to make sure you regularly clean the filter though.

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All the tumble dryer fires I have attended have usually been attributed to overheating or a stuck timer, causing the dryer to overheat. However, the lint and fluff has indeed contributed to the spread within the unit. Good advice to keep them clean.

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Lint on the heating element is causing the vast majority of fires in tumble dryers, usually down to a seal breakdown that supposed to keep the lint in the drum before it gets caught in the filter. 

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  • 8 months later...

I’ve been to 100’s, and almost always the cause was down to pilot error. Allowing a build up of fluff through poor maintenance or the favourite, checking half way through the drying cycle to see if the washing is dry and when it was swapping the load for more wet clutches and not allowing the dryer to ever go into its designed cooling phase.

Overheating + Fluff = 🔥🔥🔥🔥 (that’s an IFE Level 4 Science equation) 🤓

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To be fair you can clean the filter as much as you like but if the drum seal fails and lint reaches the element then it will still catch fire.  I personally think tumble dryers should fail safe so if folk don’t clean the filters it turns off until they do. 

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Couldn't agree with you more @Noddy. A technical solution as you describe is not difficult 

Its a bad enough issue with domestic appliances, but with commercial sized laundry kit, the issue can be super sized!

These photos show a large industrial tumble dryer in a residential mental health unit in central London. This 'care'(?) facility offers a wet drying out clinic for alcoholics, who are permitted to bring copious unities of alcohol in with them during their stay. Most residents were vagrants. The unit was poorly run and located in an old Victorian building with a centre for those with eating disorders (mainly painfully thin young girls) and a mental health day centre.

Frankly, when it comes to vulnerable persons, this place was a very high risk 

The care approach the wet drying out clinic had, was that clients were left to their own devices during most of their stay. They did their own cleaning and laundry, but being paralytically drunk all day, the place and clients were a filthy mess. It stank in there. The drunk residents would often try to break into see the girls in the eating disorder below in the early hours, traumatising them and the staff. The guys would often urinate and dedicate in the shared staircase too.  What a pig sty

When I pointed out the massively excessive amount of fluff and explained that the heating element relies on air passing through the filter to work properly, the idiotic staff said it was down to the permanently pissed clients to clean it. No amount of effort by me would shift their view as the care plan was all about making the clients independent.

This was the worse NHS property I ever had the displeasure to work in. Thank God its closed now as a serious fire was only a matter of time

Tumble 2.jpeg     Tumble 1.jpeg

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  • 3 months later...

Its been widely reported in the news today that the government is to issue an "unprecedented" recall notice of up to 500,000 Whirlpool tumble dryers which pose a fire safety risk.

Whirlpool told to recall dryers

Also a helpline number for anyone who has one of the dryers 0800 151 0905.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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