SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20240626-5B155-2147338365. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: CUSIMAX CMHP-C150N (CUSIMAX 1500W Electric Hot Plate, Hot Plate for Cooking Electric Single Burner, Portable Countertop Burner Stainless Steel, Easy to Clean,CMHP-C150N). Incident: I purchased a cast iron hot plate from Amazon, listing here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VLK8G99?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details This unit is a serious safety hazard. I used it to boil 4 cups of water in a pot with the heat turned all the way up and in the 11.5 minute it took to reach a rolling boil, the entire housing of the unit had become too hot to touch. The entire housing of the unit is made from sheet metal which rapidly conducts the heat of the cast iron top, raising the temperature of the housing almost as high as the cooking surface. After just 11.5 minutes of use I couldn't touch the metal housing anywhere at all and I could only touch the plastic temperature dial for a second before it became too painful to maintain contact. Had I continued using the hot plate the temperature dial would've inevitably become so hot that attempting to turn the unit off using the dial with bare hands would've caused burns. This hotplate also has no internal fan, meaning it's enclosed and poorly ventilated metal body acts as an oven-like enclosure, trapping it's radiated heat inside itself and cooking the internal electrical components. I believe that, with enough regular use, these conditions will cause the insulation on the internal wire harness to melt or break down enough to become either a fire or electrical hazard. I also believe that using this hot plate on a wood surface/countertop may cause pyrolysis in the wood, lowing it's ignition temperature, due to the high heat the unit radiates downward on a regular basis, potentially posing a fire hazard due to it's poor h