SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20181015-90839-1803076. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Frigidaire FAD704DWD (70 pint dehumidifier). Incident: This 68 year old consumer contacted the CPSC Hotline to report that the dehumidifier he purchased online June 10, 2016 had overheated and repeats the overheating very quickly. He is reporting this unit as a severe fire hazard and is asking that it become one of the recalled units. Around October 9th, 2018 the caller and his family went out for about three or four hours but when they returned to their home there was a burning odor throughout it. The caller went to the basement because it seemed to be coming from there to discover that it was his 70 pint dehumidifier that was overheating and was exceedingly hot. He immediately unplugged it and allowed it to cool off. The filter was clean due to having been changed recently and all else was up to care specifications. He waited for several days then plugged the dehumidifier back in and remained with it, however after only one half hour the fan stopped and the dehumidifier began instantly heating to a high heat. He repeated this a couple of days later and it repeated that same process and is not being used at all. There are no injuries being reported. The caller does still have the product. The consumer contacted the manufacturer and the distributor October 15th, 2018 and he was advised that he was outside of the warranty process and there was no assistance.