SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20211030-6BF34-2147359005. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Black & Decker BHVHC15 (Black & Decker 22 inch ceramic heater. Black. Use horizontally or vertically. BNVHC15). Incident: Black & Decker space heater model BHVHC15 may cause a fire due to confusing product electronic display that may lead consumers into thinking the product is OFF when in fact it is in STANDBY, able to come on by itself after a user goes to bed, leaves home or otherwise leaves the product unattended. The display does NOT work as indicted in the user manual. The product also appears to occasionally draw more electrical current than indicated on the appliance and in the manual (exceeding 1600 watts)The company s customer service phone representative seemed uninterested in hearing my concern. . The company, W Appliance, Inc. in New York City, has not returned my phone message in which I said I wanted to alert to a potential safety issue with the product. I purchased two of these, both of which have this problem. ADDITIONAL INFO: The issue is the unit's electronic display shows a single red "plug" icon when the appliance is OFF but connected to a live outlet. It also shows the same icon when the built-in thermostat places the unit in STANDBY because the room temperature has reached the set level. As a result, a user could mistake that red light icon to mean that the appliance is OFF, when in fact it is in STANDBY, able to come on at any time by itself when the room cools down. If the user goes to bed, leaves the room or otherwise leaves the appliance unattended believing the appliance is OFF when it actually is in STANDBY, this could create a fire hard, especially if the unit is set at 1500 watts and is aimed at a couch, bed or other combustible item. The user manual says: "To shu