Faulty tumble dryers linked to house blazes recalled at last
THOUSANDS of tumble dryers have finally been recalled after a string of house fires – including one that killed a mother of two.
Beko last night said it would be recalling five models, including the DCS85W – responsible for at least 20 blazes and the death of housewife Mishell Moloney.
It comes five years after the firm announced a recall on its 6kg and 7kg capacity tumble dryers thought to have caused 100 fires.
The company has now admitted that as many as 3,450 8kg and 9kg dryers, sold between May 2012 and May 2013, could be at risk of failing and overheating.
As a result the Turkish manufacturer has recalled models DCU9330W, DCU9330R, DCU8230W, TKF8439A and DSC85W.
Four of the five models of dryer affected are Beko branded and the other model is a Blomberg.
In a product recall notice Beko said: ‘We have identified a production batch with a component, that in rare circumstances could fail and overheat, potentially leading to a fire risk.’
Mother-of-two Mishell Moloney, 49, was killed in a blaze caused by a defective printed control board in a Beko DSC85W dryer in February last year.
Her inquest, held at Birmingham Coroner’s Court in August 2016, heard that the model was responsible for 20 other fires but the manufacturer has taken until today to launch a voluntary repair programme. Miss Moloney, a fulltime carer, was thought to have been the third person in the UK to die in a fire caused by a defective tumble dryer. Beko makes a fifth of all new white goods sold in Britain. Its UK and Ireland quality control manager Andrew Mullen was asked at her inquest why the 8kg DSC85W had not been recalled after it was linked with fires.
He replied: ‘We looked at the number of incidents we had against the sales, the severity of these incidents [and] they were all incidents that happened within 10 to 20 minutes of the dryer first being used.’
‘Nearly all those were when the tumble dryer was in unheated buildings such as a shed or outhouse. In those cases the risk of injury was low.’
MPs slammed tumble dryer manufacturer Whirlpool in April for failing to protect its customers as it emerged machines known to be a fire risk could be sitting in three million British homes.
The US company issued a safety alert in November 2015 after admitting millions of machines sold between 2004 and 2015 were a fire risk, but said customers could continue to use them, provided they were supervised.
However, it eventually told people in February this year not to use the models until engineers had been to fix them after pressure from consumer groups.
Labour candidate for Hammersmith, west London, Andy Slaughter has campaigned for a full recall and for victims to be paid compensation.
More than 700 families, some with no insurance, lost possessions or were driven out of their homes by blazes caused by the faulty machines.
The Local Government Association said there were 2,190 tumble dryer incidents between 2012 and 2014. Most of the fires started when a build-up of fluff residue came into contact with the heating element.
‘Could fail and overheat’