SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20180210-A6911-2147393009. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Honeywell RTH2300B1038 (Honeywell residential heat/cool thermostat RTH2300B1038, sold at Lowes.). Incident: Honeywell heat/cool thermostat RTH2300B1038 Thermostat fails in heat mode and furnace never shuts off. This is the second time this has occurred each with a different unit. Latest happened today, 02/10/2018, I was wakened by an excessively warm house about 4am and knew immediately the t-stat had failed. LCD screen appeared blank, moving switch from heat to OFF also failed to stop furnace - only removing t-stat from wall stopped furnace. This is the second time this has occurred, and today's thermostat is a replacement. The prior was about a month ago. I came home from work and noticed when I unlocked the door the door knob felt warm! Upon entering I found my house at 95 degrees and the furnace actively running. The thermostat LCD was blank and again the only way to stop it was to remove it from the wall. Changing batteries did not restore thermostat function. These thermostats should never fail in an active heating mode. I don't know how long my furnace ran on the day I was gone, but grant you it was hot and ran longer than it was designed I fear I could have had a fire, or what about my pets? I was fortunate the dogs had been in the shop the house heated to 95. After this failure I bought a the same model as a direct replacement which worked until today.