SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20250812-1594B-2147328741. Severity: No Incident, No Injury. Product: Mendota FV44i-MOD (Mendodta Model No. FV44I-Mod Fireplace Insert Heater). Incident: When my wife got up on Sunday June 1st she called me right away to inform me that our fire place insert has self ignited and no one had turned it on. I had removed the battery's from the remote which starts it to protect it from acid battery leaks. Sure enough it was lite and the pilot keep trying to relight even thou it was lit. I had to shut off the gas main valve to stop the flame. Then switch off the pilot lighting switch to stop it from trying to ignite it. I felt this was very unsafe condition and called the installer (Schagrin Gas Company Middletown Delaware) and they told me it wasn't there problem it was the manufactures issue. I then call them (Mendota at Johnson Gas Appliance Company [REDACTED] - Cedar Rapids, IA 52405 and informed them of the unsafe condition that their Mendota Model FV44i-Mod ignited by it self and I was lucky we were home at the time. They informed me that they would have a technician check it out. They sent a Schagrin expert to investigate the issue and he found the receiver for the mother board failed and when he turned on the pilot switch it tried to lite without the remote. He had to get a new receiver for the mother board and replace it. I feel this is a very unsafe condition for public use and the Mondota company who design and built it should recall and reprogram the unit to shut off when a receiver or mother board failure not lite off. We were so lucky to be home when this happen.