SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20240623-EB6A4-2147338455. Severity: No Incident, No Injury. Product: Generac G0072090 (Generac Emergency Generator purchased through COSTCO, installed and maintained by [REDACTED] (a Generac-certified installer), Guardian 24KW with Automatic Transfer Switch, Model G0072090, Serial Number 3012186978. 1 year old.). Incident: Approximately 2AM, February 29th, 2024, our Generac whole house emergency generator turned on due to loss of mainline electrical power from [REDACTED]. Shortly thereafter, we were awakened to a huge noise coming from the kitchen. Upon heading to the kitchen, most of the lights were inoperative, even though we had a whole house generator. Only about 10% of the house lights turned on, and the ones that did were weak and/or surging. Most circuits were inoperative. Upon entering the kitchen, the [REDACTED] coffee maker had turned itself on and was spinning the water pump at a high shrill, well beyond the normal turn rate. It soon burned itself out and ceased operation. Upon checking the major appliances, minor appliances and lighting, over half of the house's systems were inoperative. We checked the 200AMP whole house circuit breaker panel and no breakers were tripped. The emergency generator was surging high and low upon inspection outside. We called our Generac installer electrician emergency on-call number and spoke to [REDACTED] from [REDACTED] (they also maintain the generator). [REDACTED] asked us to check various systems across the house and many were indeed inoperative, including some GFCI plugs would not reset. He had never heard of this happening and during the phone inspection, the mainline power returned and the Generac emergency generator powered down from the Automatic Transfer Switch. The light circuits returned across teh house, but about half of the appliances were burned out and inoperative. [REDACTED] came over at 7:30AM and then did an initial house inspecti