Dishwasher Caught Fire

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gadgetgary

gadgetgary

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Jan 31, 2005
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This is an interesting threat posted on the 'Appliances Forum':

Didn't find anything on a search...
Our POS Jenn Air (made by maytag I believe) dishwasher was 12 years old. Pretty noisy so we always set it to wash during the night when we were sleeping.... so, two weeks ago I am awakened by the SO with "Do you smell that?".

Downstairs we go- yes, it is smokey...and it is coming from the dishwasher. Open it up- Yep definitely. I declare that it must be a plastic tupperware on the heating element.

We open the house up and air out the smoke. Run the whole house fan for a few minutes.

But still a strong smell and some smoke coming out of the DW.... I reach in, and feel the element...cool... uh, oh.

Tools.

Remove the lower panel: Insulation on the underside is ON FIRE! Red smoldering embers, smoke... Pull it out and toss in the sink... put it out.

Ultimately I determine the cause: one of the wires to the heating elements broke at the crimp connector (stress concentrator).... over the years the vibration led to the wire failure. Once the wire broke the current arced and caught the insulation on fire.

Sobering... another way for appliances to kill.

So, we have a new Bosch SHE66C05.... sweet.

Gary
 
(Tom, you got the Tasteless Tidbit of the Day award for that comment:-)

Seriously though, I never understood how someone can press a button on a washer, dryer, or dishwasher, and then leave the house or go to sleep. The rule has always got to be that when the machine is running, you can see it or hear it, and you're in the same airspace with it so you can smell smoke if there's a fire.

Same case for stoves, ovens, microwaves, breadmakers, toasters, coffeemakers, and all the other little electric wonders we have around the house, and the fireplace if you have one.

Low wattage isn't an excuse either; after all a switch or small motor can also short out and cause a fire. For that matter unplugging stuff when not in use will prevent trouble if there's a short in the plug. And always unplug by grasping the plastic plug itself, not by tugging on the wire, which will cause the wire to fray internally and is a major fire hazard.

Last but not least: You've got your smoke detectors and so on, now spend another few bucks for a couple of large boxes of baking soda. When thrown on a kitchen fire, it will soak up grease and will also release CO2 to help extinguish the fire.
 
Hey hey hey

That was NOT tasteless. It was genius!

Tasteless, as well as classless and inappropriate, would be MY domain.....and don't you forget it.

*LOL*

Who loves ya baby?
 
I was wondering if anyone sold a power cutoff system for the home similar to the systems that are used in commercial buildings. In those systems, the electrical circuit in the affected part of the building is shut off to minimize the danger of live wiring, or if the fire was caused by an electrical source.

I just recently purchased a nifty smoke detector system that will transmit a radio signal that causes other smoke detectors in the home to sound, even if they are not picking up smoke.
 
When our kitchen was remodeled in the very early 70's, the dishwasher was put on its own switch above the counter for emergency shut offs. We never used it, and every few years someone would ask "What does this switch go to?" I was the only one who ever remembered.

If someone would like a 4 cycle Waste King dishwasher in central NY, please let me know...
 
Said: I was wondering if anyone sold a power cutoff system for the home similar to the systems that are used in commercial buildings.

Response: Not sure exaclty what is being asked, but I did find ARC interruptors in Home Depot, which I understand is now required by code for bedroom circuits.

Like a GFI /GFCI [a/k/a residual current detector] there is a commection to neutral required in the circuit-breaker panel (consumer unit=> UK).

http://www.geindustrial.com/cwc/products?famid=8&catid=36&id=cb-qafci
 
Oh no that is so sad. A similar thing happened to me once but i could restore the machine. It was the motor in my Hoover Keymatic that almost caught on fire. Lyckily i had just come home from shopping so i could turn off the machine before it could spread. The wires in the motor looked really bad i can tell. Now it has a working motor in it again and the machine works tip-tip as far as i can see.
 
Fire is of course a concern. I know one family that not only doesn't leave anything on when they sleep or leave the home, but they also unplug any appliance once they are through with it.

I'm quite the opposite. Everything - except those things with parasitic energy drains above 1 watt - stays plugged in when not in use. I also don't have a problem setting the dishwasher to run before I leave for work or go to bed, although usually I set it to run in the evening while I'm still awake. My feeling is that a quality appliance with a good safety record is safe to leave plugged in and to run unattended occasionally. I don't like to leave stoves or ovens run unattended, though.
 
Agreed

I am with you Sudsy.
I have to trust a few things to do what they are supposed to do.
I may unplug the dishwasher after only running when I am home only to die from something else.
Life is too short to take on every worry.
Kelly
 
.... I am with you boys.........then the wear-and-tear on the outlet will cause a fire from the constant Plugging and Unplugging. Especially if you pull cords rather than properly pull plugs.

And I'm not telling what I pull; and if it's burning from the "P & U" get thee to a doctor.
[Ducks and runs].

When *yo' time is up, yo' time is up*.
 
I am glad that you were ok!!!

Ther is a house around the corner from my mother that the people were not so lucky. In Vancouver,Wa( where I grew up) A dishwasher burned the house to the ground. No one was hurt, They have since rebuilt the house and all is well. That is a very good idea having a seperate breaker for the dishwasher so close to it.
 
I would say that exposed heating elements present a greater fire risk than the in-line water heaters of euro models like Bosch and Miele.

Interestingly, just tonight I was washing a new set of glass storage bowls in the '57 KA KD-2P portable dishwasher. The lids are red vinyl or similar sort of soft rubber. During the spraying they kind of flew around the bottom of the washer. One landed between the cutlery tray (empty) and the heated air inlet. During the heated air dry, the air flow was hot enough to melt one of the lids pretty thoroughly, and damage another one. There was no danger of fire, but... probably the last time I put in anything meltable that can become airborne in the KD-2P's powerful spray action, unless I can check before the heated air dry starts.

On the plus side, I definitely know the heated air dry function is working!
 
Electricals

Im kinda in the middle myself, I will leave appliances on and pop out, but only if I know I will not be gone long, and again it depends on what kind of appliance. Anything that heats Im wary of, so I would never leave the tumble dryer on or a dishwasher, because of its drying cycle. However when I had a washer dryer, I did used to leave that running and go out, mostly cos the damn thing took so long to dry!!!

I DEFF would NOT leave an oven on auto, or microwave thats just asking for trouble, but I do use my teasmade every day , and thats next to my bed!

As for better quality appliances not causing fires?? I dont agree, a loose wire is a loose wire no matter how expensive the appliance is.

I think most of all tho - why would you leave appliances on when you out? - You dont save much money by doing stuff at night, and I actually like to know when the dishwasher has finished or the dryer.

I dont think we can be silly tho, all this unplugging everything if its not in use is pointless, tv's radios' clocks, microwaves, these need to be plugged in all the time, Im not gonna scrabble behind my big tv just to plug it in. But these are all realitly low power users, i think the trouble comes with white goods.

Oh British Telecom over here do a great wireless home system.

Its a series of smoke alarms, burgular alarms, carbon monxide detoectors and cameras, that all link up wirelessly to one another and to your phone line.

If anything happens it calls you and tells you, and if it cannot contact you then it calls neighbours or friends.

ALso you can check everythings ok on the web cam.

A little OTT but its nice to be protected.

Oh god look at me going on!! this was only meant to be a short reply - sorry guys!
 
..and if the phone line burns?

I actually slow-cook in my electric oven, leaving it unattended. I set the oven to turn on, do its business and turn off. (But then the oven is less than 3 yrs of age). I feel safer doing that with electric than gas, and 250*F (120*C +/-) appears to be tame. (Paper auto-combusts at 451*F).

At that temp., the water/moisture the food gives off (Cooking makes food tastier by reducing the food's water content therby concentrating the flavor), exceeds the evaporation losses. There will be more water in the pan than when you started. Not to mention fat and grease and drippings. There is very little chance of burning a pan, IMHO.

One of the reaons raw food is healthier than cooked is that it has a higher water content. The moisture has not been driven out by heat. Ditto frying~ removes the most moisture/water; results in unhealthiest foods.

So we are back to=> Be careful don't become consumed by fear. The universe gives you what you think about most, good or bad.

When you time is up. It's up. NEXT IN LINE PLEASE.
 
I tend to gnosh until just before retiring, so it's handy to wait until then to fill up the dishwasher and start it at that time. In rhe morning, clean dry dishes, and nothing dirty cluttering up the sink.
 
Evening Wash

I too tend to start the dishwasher and then retire to 'dreamland' but now am concerned that I should be 'up' while the dishes are being 'spit shined'. Perhaps there is a more appropriate TOD to run this very useful appliance.
 
ive heard of stoves catching on fire without even being on. happened to a woman i work with, the electronic controls caught fire when the stove hadnt even been used

as far a leaving things running when i leave........sometimes i look at it like, who the hell wants to be home if it catches fire? lol
 
appliance fires

I have to agree with Mr Sparkle...qualtity means nothing. Never had one of my babies catch fire, but just think about it for a moment. You would never, ever leave a 100W bulb burning in a closed wardrobe or clothes closet.
Yet we feel comfortable leaving 3250W heating coils merrily running away in an even smaller space while we sleep.
What, there are no clothes in the dishwasher?
Hmm, forgot that plastic doesn't burn.
Silly me.
Interesting side note. People who install smoke detecters over here in Germany are seen as being hysterical. My new place came with one installed by the builder. All my acquaintances saw it (it kind of did stick out) and said "ach ja, typisch amerikanisch". The German trains refuse to install them.
Not surprisingly, Germany has a much higher rate of smoke-inhalation related deaths than all the countries surrounding it...all of whom require smoke detecters.
Makes you wonder.
 
We beleive in preventative maintenance and pre-emptive strikes.

Scenario: on a train from Paris to Amsterdam. Beautiful girl in a red sleeveless dress with spaghetti straps. [Even I looked!] UNTIL she raised her arms to light a cigarette. Can you say overgrown jungle? Then she stuck the cancer stick in her mouth full of rotten teeth. *FAINT*

Culture and *norms* are a learned thing, I guess.

But to defend Germans, aren't structures there generally concrete and steel/rebar whereas we still have wood-frame construction?
 
Well, in defense of trusting an appliance, most light bulbs don't have safety devices that shut them off if the temperature gets too high. Most dishwashers (built since 1960, anyway) do have such devices on their heaters. Sure it's not foolproof, but then nothing really is, because fools are so ingenious.

Even if german homes were constructed of steel and concrete, there's still a lot to burn in a typical home besides the walls. Furniture, bedding, drapery, rugs, wooden floors, clothes, rafters, roofing, books, plastic electronic goodies, people.
 
they were, till I arrived

Germans were orderly and organized, until they made the mistake of letting me into the country.
Chaos �ber alles!
The trouble with smoke detectors being accepted here has its roots in several things.
First, they are seen as "amerikanisch". The German intellectual left resents the US tremendously. I can not count the times I have been talked down to and lectured in the last 20+ years (in bad English). There is a firm belief among many that all countries in the world have culture and tradition - just not the US.
Because the Americans are seen as the originators of these smoke detectection systems (they aren't) they are automatically bad.
Second, many of the first generation (some still do) used a miniscule amount of alpha-radiation to analyze the air-quality. Germans were up in arms about nuclear energy in those days (with good reason, I think) so anything "radioactive" was seen as dangerous.
Third - despite the severe damage done by tornados, high winds, hail and flooding here in Germany over the last several years there is still a firmly rooted belief that Americans only have "leicht-bau" homes - and German homes are massively built of stone and concrete. The truth is, as Rich said - who cares whether the walls don't burn - it is the toxic fumes from the content which are deadly.
I truly wish the Europeans would shake off some of their knee-jerk "if it is from the US it is bad" mentality. I also wish the US would acknowledge that their are other ways of doing things on this planet - and some of them might even be better.
But not much chance of that...60% of all Americans of European stock sind deutsches Blut... which brings us back to the bull-headed beginning of the topic...
Oh, yea - the girl with the teeth and the under-arm hair. Not all European women are that way, but the man-hating/castrating-women-are-only-free-when-men-are-subjugated- mentality is still to be found here. I never cease to be astonished at the total wimps who put up with their wives/girl friends treating them the way they do...and wonder what sort of woman would want that sort of man.
Me, I like a furry man who smells good. I do understand why a woman might not want to shave such sensitive areas...you ever really thought about what you have there, pressed against your throat every morning?
 
I had the fortune (or misfortune) of sharing a house with a Swiss-German man when I attended college several decades ago.

Overall he was pleasant to the point of boredom. But he had this thing about how anything American was automatically inferior to that which could be obtained in Switzerland. He would go into hysterics if we happened to be watching TV together. Not at any comedy, but at the commercials. Oh, they were so stupid, stupid Americans for allowing them, he's say. I found this extremely annoying because like most of us, I would go into a trance when the commercials came on, just waiting for them to end, not really paying attention to them. By drawing attention to them, and to himself, he was being very obnoxious.

Finally I got tired of listening to the "oh, it's so much better in Switzerland" prattle. He knew I was born in another state (Connecticut, to be exact). He hadn't been there. With the collusion of the third housemate (American as well), I started observing about just about anything that came up, that Oh, my, it was SOOOO much better in Connecticut. The look on his face, ("Uh-HUH!?") was priceless. He was not a stupid person (PhD in Physical Chemistry), but had limited social skills, but even he caught onto the satire, eventually, and his Swiss-is-better remarks slowly petered out.

This genious also used to lament about how awful American women were, and his inability to date any of them. He attributed this to his old world habits of treating them deferentially, such as holding open doors, etc., and that they were too uncouth to appreciate his gentility. Finally after hearing a lot of that stuff, I lost it and told him that I couldn't think of any American women who would want to go out with him, holding a door or not.

Overall, I did not get a postive opinon of the Swiss nation as a result of this 1 year experience. But I'm sure there are some nice ones, and they may even have smoke detectors.

Re: German homes built of stone and concrete. I just hope they never have a minor to major earthquake! California homes are deliberately built light, and of wood, so they can flex and sway with a quake, and not tear apart.

To be fair, though, as I'm sure you're aware, there is a LOT of ribbing of Germans in American (and English) comedy, and among friends. Witness Conan O'Brien's late night grouesque impression of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's thick Austrian accent. I'm sure most Germans are aware of this attitude and perhaps their haughty dismissal of anything American is some compensation. And not without any reason, because there is a tremendous amount of junk produced here, for the sake of planned obsolescence and profit before function. But the German's refusal to protect their lives with smoke detectors simply because they are perceived as being an American invention... that is like cutting of one's nose to spite one's face. Is there a German word for that, besides "Dumbkopfistch"?
 
you all are missing the point, its not the heating element that overheated and caught fire!

Its the wiring underneath that caught fire or shorted out.

Thats what GADGET GARY meant when he said

"Ultimately I determine the cause: one of the wires to the heating elements broke at the crimp connector (stress concentrator).... over the years the vibration led to the wire failure. Once the wire broke the current arced and caught the insulation on fire."

This is the same short out that happened on my Haier DW also.
 

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