SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20241031-995AB-2147335612. Severity: No Incident, No Injury. Product: KAZ INC. UHT360MGH (Honeywell 360 degree electrical space heater). Incident: I purchased three Honeywell 360 degree electric space heaters last winter. One of the heaters I had in my garage and one of them I used in my bathroom. At the end of spring 2024 I was using the heater in my garage when I heard the sound of electricity arcing before the breaker tripped. I inspected the heater and noticed right where the cord comes out of the heater the "hot" side of the cord was fried and disconnected from the unit. I brushed it off as a "fluke" and thought maybe the cord had been damaged somehow, thanked my lucky stars I didn't get shocked and carried on. Well on Tuesday night I had the heater on in the bathroom while I was getting a shower and the same thing happened in the bathroom. But this time I know there was zero damage or wear to the cord because the first scare made me kind of weary of the situation. My six year old had come into the bathroom to use the potty and as soon as he walked in the unit started arcing and scared the living shit out of him. Thankfully he was not injured. The part that concerned me after making sure my son was ok was that the GFCI never tripped and neither did the breaker in the basement. The cord was smoking and fried the GFCI outlet. The cord looks exactly the same as the other unit did so that's why I'm writing this. I believe the problem is the wire is possibly undersized as well as the grommet that holds the cord into the unit is a pinch type grommet and so it compromised the inside of the electrical cord. This is definitely a fire and electrical shock hazard.