SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20180428-0266C-2147388315. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Rival ES280 ("Rival" brand "Steam Iron" model:ES280 which was sold through Walmart stores.. but any (all) clothes iron with this "360� Pivoting Cord" design will have this flaw.). Incident: This failure (cord breakage and arcing) was observed in a "Rival" brand "Steam Iron" model:ES280 which was sold through Walmart stores.. but any clothes iron with this "360� Pivoting Cord" design will have this flaw. A quick survey online of clothes irons for sale on [REDACTED].com and Walmart.com show many clothes irons use this "360� Pivoting Cord" design. When using clothes iron in a normal manner the design feature described as a "360� Pivoting Cord" concentrates the stresses on the electrical cord onto a portion of the cord hidden within the clothes irons housing. Normal use repeatedly alternates flexing a narrow radius bend on the cord in one location (hidden inside the housing) until failure occurs. ETL (Intertek), 3025655, actually put their mark on this product and stated it conforms to UL STD.UL60335-1&-2-3. How could ETL put their mark on any clothes iron with "360� Pivoting Cord - Easy ironing at any angle the smooth-moving pivot cord never gets in your way"? This is not a stress relief component but one that concentrates the stress/bending to a small portion of the electrical cord, a portion which is hidden inside the housing so cord fatigue/failure/arcing is not apparent to the consumer (well, not until the arcing glows through the housing and/or smoke/fire appears.) Couple that with the guillotine-like clamp used to hold the wire in place and you have a line of products that are designed to fail. I believe any reasonable engineer (electrical/mechanical) or electrician/technician would immediately flag this design as flawed. I can't comprehend how a testing la