SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20220211-0ACC6-3596056. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Heat & Glo Escape-I35-F (35FB-Fire Screen) (Gas fireplace with insert (glass door)). Incident: The customer and the installation technician noticed the problem upon installation in 2014. The gas fireplace insert has a glass front panel. During operation the glass can reach 500 degrees or more. To protect against contact with the glass, the fireplace insert comes with a hinged metal frame door with a metal screen inset. The hinged door is attached to hinges on one side and is held closed on the other by a magnet. Because a child or pet could easily open the door, the manufacturer provides a child safety lock. This lock attaches to the door and to the otherwise unused hinge on the right side of the fireplace and makes it impossible to open the door without a screwdriver and some knowledge. The technician could not install the child safety lock on this unit. The lock itself is a 1" high L-shaped bracket. The alignment between the door tab and the hinge on the right side of the fireplace is such that the "L" bracket will not fit. The technician gave up trying to install it and said he would check with the service people at the store. There was no further communication from them on this. 2015: A technician from the same company came out for a customer-paid annual checkup. During his visit, the customer raised the issue again, and again there was no solution. 2021 December: A technician from the same company came out to replace the fireplace remote controller and the customer again raised the issue. The technician attempted to install the lock but again found it impossible. The technician said he would check with the service department for a solution. No further communicat