SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20221223-74175-2147351893. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Westinghouse WH2400i (Westinghouse WH2400i inverter generator. Green plastic housing, 120v, 2400 W max.). Incident: Fuel tank leak on Westinghouse WH2400i inverter generator. Notes on problem listed below. A fire did not occur, fortunately. I submitted a support request to Westinghouse today with this information and I am awaiting their response. Notes on fuel leak on Westinghouse WH2400i Generator (inverter style) Dec. 22, 2022 Serial Number: 10240 A061 513042 0056 Purchased Aug. 22, 2016 from Family Farm & Home in Burton, MI Generator usage: Used as residential home backup power when grid power fails. Used 4 times since purchase, each time less than 4 hours. Total runtime < 16 hours. Most recent usage was on Dec. 17, 2022 for about 4 hours. Previous use was about a year prior. After running on Dec. 17, 2022 I let it sit in garage with fuel valve shut off and the fuel fill cap vent closed. It still had about � tank of fuel in it. Next day there was a very strong odor of fuel in garage, and fuel had dripped out of bottom of unit onto concrete floor. Set unit outside for a few days and it continued to leak. Exterior plastic housing had become severely deformed and cracked on the air cleaner side of the unit from exposure to the fuel. Carb drain is on the other side of the unit and was not leaking, and neither was the carb itself. Disassembled unit on Dec. 22, 2022 and found that the source of the leak is the fuel tank itself. Fuel leak is in the side of the tank (on the air cleaner side of the unit) at the parting line of the blow molding tool. Fuel was still weeping out of the leak and wetting the surface of the fuel tank on the side and bottom. I have pictures and a video of the fuel we