Electrolux WH 3335 Caught Fire Scary story

[fredriksam]

Well a friend of mine had an Electrolux WH 3335. This model was made around 1992 and had an 1200 RPM spin. It has workled quite good for many years but last year it started having problems.

This machine has two pumps. One for empty the machi9ne of water and one for circulating water over the clothes. Its called ALS Water Leveer Control i think. Its the pump for the circulation that was making problems. Sometimes it didnt start or stopped too early. But my fiend has kept using the machine. It washed and rinsed well enough.

Enter yesterday i was at his place helping him with some stuff (not related to the washing machine) He had just started a load in the machine when i came to him and i heard it humming away. We went up one stair to his kitchen and i began helping him with removing some stuff in the kitchen. We had a radio on also playing nice music.

After some hour i was finished with the job and my friend fixed some tea while i would take a toliet break. While there i thought it smelled a little burnt from somewhere but i figured it come from outside. i went back to the kitchen and we began drinking tea.

Then all went dark. We just looked at each other and laughed a little at that. The smell was stronger now and my friend reacted to it also. Then the fire alarm went off and we understood something was very wrong.

The smell was stronger when we came towards the stairs to the cellar and we also saw some smoke. Some crackling noise was coming from the laundry room and whren we came closer you could see flames from there.

My friend took the fire extinguisher and open the door fully. Yep the washing machine was on fire. The flames were from the side it seemed to look like. The top of the lid had become melting and it smelled awful. You know plastic burning smells not very nice.

My friend overturned the machine so it was on its side. Then he got easier putting out the fire. After some time the machine was only smoking a little and we could at least relax. He unconnected the machine to the power and after a while we two took out the mkachine and throwed it outside.

I took a photo of the machine. My friend neighbour came over curious what was going on. I have to say the fire was dramatic but it was very lucky we could fix it and stop it. Now my friend has to buy new machine.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I'm sorry for the fright and the loss. Hope you and the house are OK.  When you turned it over did water run out? Did you get the clothes out OK? 

 

[hippiedoll]

YIKES!!!

That was scary just reading what happened! I can't imagine how much scarier it would be to have been there experiencing that!

 

[tnmike]

Thank goodness you guys were there when it happened.

 

[vacerator]

Core meltdown??

Not quite, but hey, it hapened at Fermi 1 in Monroe Michigan in 1965. Luckily the reactor was scrammed in time to avoid the radiation cloud that happnes when the hot uranium hits ground water. I read the book "We almost lost Detroit".
The reactor builder Babcock and Wilcox had a bad weld on a cooling fin in a water line. It dislodged blocking the line and overheating the reactor. 15 years later Chernobyl exploded.

 

[turbokinetic]

Sorry you had to deal with that smoky mess and scary incident!

 

Did you look inside the cabinet? What actually burned in there? 

 

[fredriksam]

I think it was the second pump that started the fire because it looked like it did when i looked in from the back. The burn marks are also on the same side the pump was on. The plastic where the motor is on had melted and you can see it hanging down on the picture.

The clothes that was nearest the drum was lightly damaged while the ones on top not. They have to be washed again of course because of the smell.

The laundry room had some black spots behind the machine. He has rented an air "fixer" from firefighters to clean the room of smells.

He had begin remodeling the kitchen but now he has to do the same with the laundry room.

In the end it was lucky it never went worse than it did.

 

[foraloysius]

Oh, that's awful! Glad it didn't end up worse.

Is this a similar model?

 

[henene4]

Electronics can fail, sadly.

But that's why fire alarms and such are very important.

Glad nobody got seriously injured.

Would try to notify insurance and Electrolux anyway.

Bosch recalled 20 year old dishwashers.

Usually manufacturers are very happy to help if stuff like this happens and more often than not will send somebody out to grab the machine and help you in some way.

 

[combo52]

Wow

Sorry about the mess, you should contact Electrolux for sure as they would at least give you a new washer.

 

This is why I do not like machines that use a lot of plastic for the frames etc, A lot of LG and SS washers use plastic frames around the bottom and along with a plastic outer tub you can have a real mess when thing go wrong.

 

Most smaller non US washer and dryers do not even have a steel top and when things go wrong there have been some serious fires.

 

This is one of the many things I like about my new SQ FL washer is that there is almost no plastic used inside the machine. and it is completely encased in metal including the bottom.

 

John L.

 

[fredriksam]

foraloysius:
Yep the machine looked like the one in the picture.

I dont know if my friend will contact Electrolux or not. The machine was made in 1992 so they maybe cant help him with that.

Apart from this fire he was happy with the machine (even if it jumped sometimes during spin) Two years ago he fitted new carbon brushes in the motor i know.