SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Electrical shock / short

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20110820-FB8E0-2147476068. Matched catalog product: Amana AGR5844VDW. Incident: I recently bought an Amana gas range, Model AGR5844VDW. I've used it approximately 4 times. The knobs on the front of the range are extremely easy to turn on inadvertently. They protrude rather far from the surface of the stove, they are pointed so they can catch on things, and you only need to push it in very slightly to turn the knob. Out of the 4 times I've used the range, I've unknowingly turned the gas on 3 times while either removing things from the stove or cleaning the stovetop. I didn't realize the gas was turned on until we smelled gas in the house. Once it happened twice in one evening! The last time it happened, we didn't realize it, and we woke up in the morning to our home filled with gas. It had been running all night. We also have a greyhound, who is the height of the stove knobs, so he could easily have bumped it with his nose and turned it on. A small child could very easily reach up and slightly turn the knob to get the gas going. We do not know how it got turned on the last time, but it could easily have blown up the house, it was that bad. We were afraid to turn on any fans because we didn't want to create a spark and cause an explosion. We had to open the doors and windows and evacuate until it cleared up a little. The store we bought the appliance from (Frank's Appliance in Bradley, IL) said they had a similar complaint from another customer. They called Amana and were told they made it that way because they got complaints from people with arthritis tha