SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Electrical shock / short

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20120514-2D0E4-2147467618. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Shark S3501 (Shark Steam Pocket Mop The owner's guide has an "S3501" on it, although there is no model number listed on the original box.). Incident: I was steam-mopping the floor as I usually do, using a back-and forth motion. Suddenly the mophead blew off and exploded with a great burst of steam. I was very lucky that this happened when the mop was away from my body and no pets were in the vicinity, as the unit was very hot. After I got over my shock, I looked at the area where the pieces had come apart. Nothing appeared broken, so after it cooled down I put the pieces back together and tried to resume mopping. But I wasn't hearing the normal stem noises, and I could not generate steam pressure by pumping the handle. As I was about to give up, the mophead again exploded off the unit. This time water poured out of the handle end in addition to steam. This was obviously a very dangerous defect and I began looking online to see if this model had been recalled.