‘Fixed’ dryers are still risky says ex-Whirlpool worker
DefeCTIve tumble dryers which have been fixed to supposedly make them safe remain a ‘massive fire hazard’, a former Whirlpool engineer claimed yesterday.
The modification – being carried out on millions of machines under the company’s Hotpoint, Creda and Indesit brands – still leaves some appliances at risk of potentially lethal blazes, he alleged.
More than five million machines had a design fault that has caused at least 750 household fires since 2004, many driving families out of their homes.
They start when fluff from the cycle comes into contact with the heating element. Whirlpool began a huge drive to modify them four years ago and claims there have been no reported incidents where the fix has failed. But dozens of customers with modified tumble dryers have reported fires or the strong smell of smoke.
Now an engineer who worked on the modification has told the Mail he believes the ‘fix’ is not completely effective on all machines.
He said Whirlpool almost always tried to blame customers for fires, saying they had not removed fluff from the machine – even though many fires were caused by design faults. The man, an electrical engineer, was hired by Whirlpool as a ‘ retrofit service engineer’ in August 2016.
After a week’s training at the firm’s UK headquarters in Peterborough, he worked six days a week for the next four months, usually performing seven ‘fixes’ a day in Buckinghamshire.
The engineer, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: ‘I couldn’t believe they were getting away with it. I told my wife I would never have one of those machines.’
He said the retrofit involved cleaning and replacing a few parts but the only new bit added was a rivet fitted in the rear of the drum, which is supposed to stop large amounts of lint from building up near the heating element. ‘But this only slows it down, it doesn’t stop it,’ said the technician.
He believes that there are likely Flames in his dryer to be more and more fires in modified machines. ‘Whether you clean it or not, that thing is always a massive fire hazard,’ he added. ‘If things carry on, it’s only a matter of time before somebody dies.’
Last night MPs and campaigners described the allegations as ‘shocking’ and called on the Government to recall all the machines, whether they had been modified or not, to save lives. On May 4, the Mail reported that Jemma Spurr, 35, who fled her home in Sarisbury Green, Hampshire, with her children after a modified Hotpoint dryer caught fire, had broken a gagging order to attack the manufacturer. Whirlpool denied ever using legal mechanisms to prevent public discussion of alleged incidents.
Commenting on the engineer’s claims, Whirlpool said: ‘We dispute these allegations. They bear no resemblance to the standards we expect of our engineers, their working practices, or the training process. We are concerned that misinformed and misleading criticism of the modification programme risks discouraging consumers from registering for this important safety upgrade.
‘UK product safety regulators have repeatedly concluded that the modification is the most effective way of resolving this issue. There have been no reported incidents where the modification has proven to be ineffective.’
I was gagged over fire in ‘fixed’ tumble dryer From the Mail, May 4