Older electric range burners --do they contain mercury?

[mattl]

While sitting around after Thanksgiving dinner my sister-in-law told us a story from her younger days. Growing up they had an older electric range with a deep well cooker. The incident took place in the late 50's or early 60's, so I guess the range would be from the late 40's or early 50's.

Anyway her mother made a pot of soup in the deep well cooker and when her dad got home from work she heated up the soup for the family dinner. There was a loud explosion and to pot jumped out of the well a few inches. The burner had exploded and blew a hole in the pot. Being frugal with a family of 7 to feed her mom quickly poured out the soup and then served what was jeft for dinner not giving it much thought. My sister -in-law said she was a picky eater and only ate a little of the soup for dinner.

Well, within hours everyone was very ill. Had no idea what was wrong, and the health department ended up quarantining the whole family for over a week. My s-i-l was the least affected, and she can remember her grandmother bringing up pots of food and leaving them on the porch and making a quick exist so once she was at a safe distance someone could open the door and get the hot food.

They ran all kinds of tests and I guess they decided it was mercury poisoning. Did they use mercury in old electric range burners? If not what was there that could make so many people so ill?

 

[redcarpetdrew]

An idea...

One thought is that, knowing that older thermostats contained mercury, I wonder if the burner had one of those thermostat controlled switches (ala the Sensi-tip burner) and the mercury was released when the burner ruptured the cap tube...

RCD

 

[toggleswitch2]

Interesting story.

My sister's newer GE DW was an upscale thing with a SS interior. She said it couldn't wash a load of dishes worth a damn. Anyhoo............

She had heard a loud "POP" (and esuing cloud of smoke) and found that the DWer's heating element had popped and was smoking. She also said there was a film of muck all over the contents of the DW. I'm guessing it was the powdery insulator that is encased by the outer sheath and isloates the resistance wire inside the heating element.According to the attached article, it's magnesium based.

There is now a Whirlpool tall-tub in its place.

Heating element - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[tomturbomatic]

Mercury would have affected the brains of those so poisoned, like the tragic cases of children who were fed seed corn that had been treated with mercury as a pesticide. Toggle is correct that around the nickel-chrome resistance wire is an electrical insulating compound, often a magnesium oxide alloy, then the stainless steel outer sheath. The raw element would not be used in this insulating application. I have seen two oven elements short out in my mom's wall oven with a window in the door. It looked like a sunrise in there as the magnesium alloy burned briefly. A friend reported that when a Frigidaire Randiantube shorted out under a Club Aluminum saucepan, it burned a hole through the pan's bottom, sort of like arc-welding.

I wonder if the whole family becoming ill was similar to them all having a good dose of milk of magnesia?

 

[norgeway]

Unit BURN OUT!!!

My dad was heating water for hot chocolate one morning on our 55 Hotpoint , when there was a loud BOOM....the tea kettle levitated about a foot as a blinding flashcame from under it...water sprayed everywhere...dad..who was afraid of electricity anyway..ran, I went in, turned off the unit...half of which was still working, cleaned up the water,the kettle had a quarter size hole in it...I installed a new unit and everything was ok..

 

[circlew]

Have known several people who had elements rupture while cooking, usually ruining the pan being used. They were all GE or Hotpoint Calrod units, and I've heard these are the ones most likely to have this problem. Was told they sometimes get a crack in the outer sheath which causes them to fail. I've never heard anything about any mercury in any of them, just the magnesium oxide Tomturbomatic mentions.

 

[panthera]

Nah,

not just GE.
I think they fail more often simply because they supply so much of the OEM market.

Here in Europe, those hideous,horrible, nasty, filthy, hard to heat-up and harder to cool down solid elements fail similarly, usually with horrid displays of sparks and melting iron.

And my grandparent's Flair had a front burner go up, welding a cast iron skillet to it the second week they had it.

 

[iheartmaytag]

I don't know about Mercury content

But I have had two bake elements on my Maytag range blow over the last 13 years. The first one was a fizzle and a spit and just went out. The second one wouldn't stop. It was like a welder's welding rod. I am not exagerating it kept burning about 15 inches before I got to the basement and shut off the breaker.

 

[westingman123]

OMG

>before I got to the basement and shut off the breaker<

Mama pulled too hard on her Westy range and pulled the pigtail off. The thing was like a cobra spitting and she was frozen with terror. I sped down the basement stairs and pulled the MAIN breaker, plunging us into darkness and was much relieved to hear Mama laughing (hysterically?) upstairs.

I'd forgotten the whole thing, thanks for bringing it back.

 

[charbee]

All the more reason for "cooking with Gas!" ;-)

 

[toggleswitch2]

*LOL* until you have seen a few houses go up in flames due to gas leaks and user error.

 

[charbee]

Sorry, Toggles...I've still got all my wits about me (for the most part) and I'll still take a gas stove over electric any day!

Leaks can almost always be attributed to poor installation or maintenance. User error? I'll hold my tongue on that one.

 

[redcarpetdrew]

before I got to the basement and shut off the breaker.

You know, most people whine when they >DON'T< have a light in the oven. Besides, maybe you were using the 'seared' setting...

(Ducks and runs!)

RCD

 

[toggleswitch2]

Her stove was a '50's Magic Chef WITH PILOT LIGHTS

.
~User error? I'll hold my tongue on that one.

I had a great-aunt that was a compulisve hoarder. Collyerism supreme.

There was no way to convince her that paper napkins, nail-polish remover bottles, crosses from chuch made of palm-leaves on the stove and an oven just chock-full of plastic containers was dangerous.

This, in light of having literally no sense of smell. Nerves were severed when her thyroid was operated on decades back.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Keven, Cast iron electric skillets are rare. I hope someone saved it.