Dryer Fire Tonight!!!!!

[launderess]

"It's not really your fault the detergent left enough cooking oil to oxidize and self ignite."

Cannot speak to modern times, but for ages laundry/housekeeping manuals gave specific warnings about things contaminated by flammable substances. Specifically such things were *not* to be machine dried unless or until one was absolutely sure all traces of oil, grease, fat, or whatever had been removed. This was on top of the warnings about using "home dry cleaning" solvents or spot removers then putting such treated items into a dryer.

It wasn't that long ago that housewives were using gasoline or kerosene to "dry clean" items at home. Then of course you had shop rags, rags your husband used when working on the car or some such, if your husband's job involved being in contact with petrol substances and so forth.

Restaurants are a particular worry because staff often use napkins or towels to clean up oil/fat spills. If those items are not disposed of/stored properly prior to laundering and or that process is not carried out properly you can have problems. http://www.semissourian.com/story/1778136.html

Many operating Laundromat or whatever business think doing restaurant/kitchen linen is nothing special. However it is a well known fact employees of such places often grab whatever is at hand (napkin or towel) to clean up any sort of spill. If these things are sent to the laundry and the operators do not know/understand what they are getting, again you can have problems.

 

[lordkenmore]

>she is waiting for a call back from Whirlpool to find out if they can give us a good discount on a new dryer.

I hope they do. It would be a nice gesture.

One thought: if they balk, they could perhaps be persuaded by starting an on-line petition requesting a good deal on a dryer.

It seems to me that insurance should cover this sort of thing, although filing claims can sometimes result in higher premiums.

 

[jerrod6]

So if we get a bit of butter, olive or vegetable oil on a tablecloth I guess we are supposed to hand wash it and let it hang to dry?

 

[logixx]

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Yow! That just spontaneously combusted!

And be sure your vent line & the belly of your dryer where the workings are (or over-head, in this case) are also clean, dust, debris, and lint-free!

 

 

-- Dave

 

[jerrod6]

I can't figure out HOW we are supposed to know the items are completely clean.  I mean we put them in an automatic washer and it does it's thing...how are we supposed to know there is no more residue left in them?

The oil stains are gone?  What? How?

 

I don't use the my washer, dryer or DW unless I am going to be home for the entire time, but even then I am not exactly sitting in front of them...so...?

 

[gusherb]

Through that whole video I was hoping he'd close the dryer door as to not feed more oxygen to the smoldering clothes, and I was appalled that there wasn't a fire extinguisher handy or that the guy didn't use one. [this post was last edited: 6/25/2015-23:35]

 

[launderess]

Oil/Fat/Grease

Terribly difficult to remove from textiles. Mainly because they are hydrophobic substances (repel water) that it often takes more than detergent/soap and water to totally shift.

Anyone who has gotten a mark from salad dressing or other oily substance on a blouse or shirt, laundered and saw the mark "gone" after coming out of the wash; only for it to reappear after drying with heat (tumble dryer or ironing) knows what one means.

A solvent is what is required to shift oils since they can get around the water repellent bit.

Historically a whole host of what we now know are nasty chemicals were used both commercially and domestically to deal with oil/fat marks. Benzine, 1.1.1. Trichoroethylene, perchloroethylene, naptha, and other substances derived from petrol including using straight gasoline. Indeed the great claim to fame for Fels and other "naptha" soaps was that bit of chemical (some soaps used benzene) shifted oils quite well.

Even today commercial laundries will often dry clean linens and garments with heavy oil/fat marks (more than can be simply just done on the spotting board), then launder by traditional methods and then dry/iron and or press. The dry cleaning solvents deal quite well with oils.

Massage therapists have a very hard time finding detergents that will shift oil from their linens. There are additives and or detergents sold to commercial laundries that are meant to deal with heavy oil stains. The formulas in such circumstances normally involve multiple washes (often at high temperatures) in an attempt to shift oil.

 

[launderess]

Did you know?

What has become known as "dry cleaning" was invented by a Frenchman?

After a maid upset an oil lamp onto a table cloth , Jean Baptiste Jolly noticed after the oil dried the affected area was cleaner than the untreated portion. The maid's name is lost to us but M. Jolly gave us "nettoyage à sec" (dry cleaning).

It is this association with France that gave rise to the marketing of "French" dry cleaning which you still see used today. Persons simply sought to cash in on the cachet of the associations with France and French culture to set that method apart from general laundry (with water).

Today of course it is all rubbish; Chinese, Korean, American, French, German whatever the nationality of the operator all dry cleaning works with the same process. The common industry joke about "French" dry cleaning is that it will cost the customer more for the exact same process.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

"Operator Error"???

and "shouldn't have been using the sanitize cycle"??? I'd need a detailed WRITTEN (and signed) explanation from the repairmen in hand before I'd even consider buying that. I see a bit of a logic problem with the notion that a 'sanitize' cycle should not be used with machine washable/dryable kitchen linens. Are you confident the director's wife relayed this information accurately? 

 

Jerrod6 has taken a different approach to the same point I was trying to make. Millions of people get their shirts, napkins, place mats, and table clothes spotted, splattered, or covered in cooking oil (I'm thinking olive, especially) every day. These items are then machine washed and dried. Shouldn't dryer fires be occurring much more often than they actually do? 

 

Jim 

 

 

 

[tolivac]

Not just cooking and food oils and grease-but how bout motor oils and greases?Happens where I work.The transmitters aren't squeaky clean electronic devices as most would think-the tune drives for coils and capacitors use grease and oil to lube them-yes it gets on our clothes.Use the hand washer stuff to get it out.That works!
Yes-dryer fire at that laundry-why didn't the guy just shut the door?And where were the fire extingushers?When he was trying to get into the door that was locked-if the fire extingushers were in there-just kick the door in!Getting the fire out is more important than the door!

 

[aquarius1984]

And yet its so different on this side of the pond...

Any Branded and Supermarket own label detergent is capable of removing grease and oils and our washing machines are capable of utilising this.

Having worked in restaurants, fish and chip shops, pubs etc etc a simple task of putting laundry in to a low water using FL machine without pre treating anything, adding a good quality detergent and NO ADDITIVES, and setting the dial for a hot wash has never left oil residue on kitchen linen and we have never had a fire from our cooler lower wattaged dryers when they have dried.

Perhaps its time for american detergents to catch up big time with ours and for this daft notion poor performing machines that rely on the user to do 3/4 of the job (which isnt an automatic in my eyes) do be completely phased out. It really cant be that difficult to have wiring installed so you guys can have heated low water usage FL's that actually do the job properly first time over any TL or HE TL.

Maybe time to drop the heat in the dryers too to stop these fires happening. Very rare to read of a dryer fire here yet its so common over there.

 

[launderess]

Additives

Pipe:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ares-Grime-...440?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20fe065198

 

[arbilab]

Oh, that's the NEW warning. Sorry, I never owned anything that new.

Motor oils don't oxidize (to the point of self-ignition) at laundry temperatures.

Robert, have to agree (some) US dryers get too hot. I had a 90's Kenmore where I had to throttle the gas down. It got so hot it scorched the detergent scent. Quite unpleasant effect.

Detergents, I think we all strongly suspect P&G dumbs-down their stuff specifically to sell you additives. I mean, there are more flavors of Tide than there are of Lay's chips fer gawdsake.

 

[askolover]

hot dryers

My GE gas dryer...typically I use low heat most of the time unless it's thick cotton items like towels or jeans because IMO it gets too hot, especially for the elastic in my scrub pants.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

Yes, some run hot, but others run cool. The Neptunes where I lived last fall ran cool. "Hi" was medium. "Med" was low. "Lo" was just a hint of heat.

OTOH, one dryer where I am now apparently has one setting: Scorch! I'm exaggerating, of course, but I try to use that one only for jeans, towels, etc.

Jim

 

[gusherb]

Our Raytheon Amana dryer was a scorcher, our Samsungtag is not as hot but I only use medium heat for my clothes because of excess shrinkage/wear. Towels and other stuff gets High or "normal" as it says.
The electric Whirlpool dryer in my sisters duplex gets real hot and has a ton of airflow cuz it will dry almost anything even big loads of towels in no more then 40 minutes. (And the loads come from a DD TL so no super fast spin either)

 

[launderess]

Common Negative Comment Americans Have With European

Dryers is that they do not get "hot" enough. As such drying times are longer and even then things emerge "damp" but not dry. Of course to many "dry" means scorching hot. *LOL*

We are speaking of both vented and condenser dryers. Friends had a Bosch Axis they hated the thing with a passion. Sadly the "Euro" units were the only things that would find into the laundry area of their NYC condo apartment.

Think European electric dryers top out at around 3kW of power. OTOH American versions go to 5kW or more.

 

[henene4]

EU dryers not hot enough?

Those units (Bosch&#92Siemens) have a first target temp of 75°C (about 170°F) here in Europe, which is, in my opinion, way to hot.
They do use stepped drying (once iron dry is reached, temp is dropped by 10°C or 20°F to the "Low temp" target temp), but still, hot enought to shrink mostly anything.

Our Bauknecht heatpump dryer tops out at 65°C (150°F), which is ok. But usually, it runs quite a bit cooler.

 

[launderess]

Interesting bit from GE

Pipe:
http://www.geappliances.com/search/fast/infobase/10000971.htm

American consumers complaining about Bosch dryers: http://www.amazon.com/Bosch-WTV76100US-Axxis-Stackable-Electric/product-reviews/B002C9IYY6

 

[logixx]

Yes,condenser dryers get really hot. The front of my Bosch gets almost too hot to touch - I still dry almost anything on high temp without issues. Don't know how hot vented dryers get, but I since they have smaller drums and smaller fans, a 3 kW heating element shouldn't be too bad.

As for GE: a common complaint from reviewed.com seems to be that they get too hot. More than 180F in some cases.

 

[askolover]

My GE

gas dryer is a 1998 model and has always been quite the toaster inside. I don't have a thermometer to use inside so I can't say for sure but I think it has ALWAYS been much warmer than is posted on GE's website Launderess linked to.

 

[logixx]

Yes, even the F&P dryer that is made by GE reached 158F on Normal and 143F on Delicate, according to Reviewed.

 

[fredriksam]

Even Miele dryers can catch fire

well many years back when we visited france, we saw a Miele dryer that had caught fire at the camp site we were at. As i understand the clothes were fine, the fire had started in the motor or fan. It was one of these early 70´s dryers, like T333 or T336. It had these "old" knobs on the front. The washing Machines was also very old and actually, we would have used the washers if they hadnt been so Dirty and scrangy.

The whole camp site was a disaster. We thought we would live cheap and still live pretty good. This was not the case there. There was a pool you could bather in, the water was Dirty and there was a wasp nest near the water. The store had old food that wasnt edible. Bah!!! the list could go on and on.

The best thing about that trip was seeing Paris and visit the Disneyland Resort.

 

[alr2903]

Dustin sorry for your troubles.  I think the fire really was caused by the new "Hot" in the Cabrio washer.  Kitchen grease plus ATC would lead me to believe there was a build up of residual grease/oil in the kitchen linens. You mention the same articles had been washed and then dried on "sanitize" many times.  I think if you had a washer with tank temp hot water, this fire might not of happened.

 

[dustin92]

You know, you may be on to something there... I never gave thought to the reduced Hot temp of the new washer vs. the old one (early 90's Kenmore DD) I had noticed that "Hot" was more like "very warm", but never considered it an issue because things always came clean. Also, on the "same items washed the same way" I just now realized, there were about 6 white cotton/polyester aprons in that load that were NOT ours... They belonged to the group that was using the camp that week, they are one of two groups that do their own cooking. I had asked if they needed anything washed, and they said they were running out of clean aprons. Who knows what they were previously washed in or if they were washed at all. That may be my answer.In any case, the dryer is gone, it was taken for scrap. I never did see the inside, I am off this week. I don't know what Whirlpool ended up doing, but am sure I will find out when I get back. I was able to pick up a small Haier portable washer for cheap yesterday, and will take that in for myself and the rest of the staff to use. Will see about having a clothesline put up for drying.

 

[dustin92]

I needed to post a long overdue update on this whole situation... Apparently the dryer *wasn't* taken for scrap, but to the storage barn to get the smell out of the house, and in the meantime a new Maytag BOL top lint filter dryer was donated, and works great. About a month after the incident, a service tech showed up out of the blue to repair the burnt up Whirlpool, and I know the whole drum assembly along with the lint filter assembly and moisture sensor bars were replaced. Used lots of bleach (lol) cleaner to clean up the rest of the machine and apparently it is in working condition- but still reeks. It hasn't been used since, and the door and side panels are still yellowed. The new Maytag is still in use and working great, I never set the temp over medium though, just to be safe. Just had to share a nice gesture on Whirlpool's part. Attitudes have cooled down, and as of last month when I finished up for the season, I still have a job. Will see how things run next summer, but I do have the Haier portable and a drying rack to take up with me.