Consumer group raises concerns over tumble dryers
A CONSUMER group has called for the urgent release of a report into Whirlpool’s fire-risk tumble dryers amid concerns about the company’s programme to fix potentially dangerous machines.
Which? said it had heard from more than 30 owners who reported that supposedly repaired dryers had caught fire or produced smoke or a smell of burning, including a case where a mother was forced to flee with her two young children as fire engulfed their garage.
In some cases this appeared to have been as a result of fluff catching on the heating element, the issue the modification was designed to fix, the watchdog said.
Which? said one customer had provided a report from a Whirlpool engineer which gave this as a cause after her modified machine started to produce smoke.
Another Which? member said his dryer caught fire 12 months after it was modified in 2017 and claimed that fluff had built up around the heating element.
Whirlpool said there had been no reported incidents where the modification had been proven to be ineffective.
The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) was ordered in May last year to carry out a review focusing on the effectiveness of Whirlpool’s fix and its handling of the modification programme.
Whirlpool issued a safety warning in 2015 after it found Hotpoint, Creda and Indesit dryers had a fault making them a fire risk and launched a programme of modifying faulty machines.
Which? said affected customers needed “urgent clarity” about the safety of the fix and called for the consumer minister to issue a recall if this could not be guaranteed.
It is continuing to advise affected customers to accept the fix until the OPSS publishes the results of its investigation.
Alex Neill, Which? managing director of home products, said:
“The regulator’s investigation cannot continue to drag on when serious questions remain unanswered about Whirlpool’s approach to the tumble dryer scandal.
“It’s very concerning that hundreds of thousands of at-risk machines are still in people’s homes, and that there is still uncertainty over whether the repair programme actually works”.
A Whirlpool spokesman said: “We have total confidence in the tumble dryer modification, which was extensively tested before and after being implemented. We thoroughly investigate all concerns relating to our products as soon as they are reported to us. There have been no incidents where the modification has proven to be ineffective.”