SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20180722-A4526-2147386638. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Rheem P-M206A-MN-C (This is a pool heater installed at my residence.). Incident: I'd like to share my experience with Rheem/ Raypak pool heaters. I purchased a Rheem 206 heater for my pool on the Thursday before Memorial Day. It was installed exactly as specified, and worked flawlessly until the Saturday before Fathers Day. That day, the pilot had gone out, so I had to relight it, which was nothing to be concerned about. Fathers Day morning, after just just 3 1/2 weeks of use, I awoke to find the heater burned to a crisp! Happy Fathers Day to me! Following the warranty instructions, I contacted [REDACTED], the local Rheem service rep. Their tech wrote it up as "beyond repair, burned up badly." He disassembled it enough to conclude the pressure switch failed, allowing it to burn after the pump shut down for the night. He contacted the Rheem regional rep by phone (right in front of me), telling him it was a "good install" and an obvious part failure. Since that time, I have been completely turned down by Corporate and refused warranty service. They questioned every aspect of the process. They wrongly concluded the gas valve was broken during installation, and the unit was tampered with to get it to work the 3 weeks that it did! The corporate warranty person, sitting at a desk in California, disagrees with the field tech here in Michigan, even after the tech explained his 28 years of experience and sent pictures of the undamaged gas valve, (which is about the only part left intact on the whole thing!) Given the complete denial of responsibility for the fire hazard, I believe this product should be thoroughly investigated. As a highly trained firefighter an