The Warehouse sold Daewoo 6kg tumble dryer despite complaints of multiple fires

Jan 17, 2024

The Warehouse has continued to sell a dryer of the same make and model that led to a house burning down last year and despite multiple complaints of it starting fires.

Last month Lower Hutt senior fire fighter Rian Kriel said his house was minutes away from being burnt down, after his 16-month-old Daewoo 6 kilogram tumble dryer started smoking.

While his wife saved the home after turning off the dryer after noticing the smoke, about a year ago a Whanganui woman wasn't as lucky. While she was on the school run, her Daewoo dryer which was the same model as Kriel's, burnt her house down.

The Warehouse home department general manager Carrie Fairley said while the models were the same, the retailer continued to sell the product because an external investigation into the Whanganui house fire last year did not conclude that the product itself was faulty and the investigation was subsequently closed.

READ MORE: * Fatal south Auckland fires caused by candles, incident reports say * Knives Out: The murder mystery that's also one of the best movies of 2019 * Whanganui woman shocked The Warehouse is giving away the dryer she says started house fire

"It is important to note, we urge customers when setting up and maintaining their dryer to follow the instructions labelled on the product and in the product manual, including emptying the lint filter," Fairley said.

Customers should contact customer services if they experienced issues with any products, she said.

Kriel said in his experience as a fire fighter, fires caused by dryers were due to misuse or lint build up.

But when he pulled the dryer apart he noticed there were loose screws and lint on the motor as well as the floor of the dryer which had melted, which he said was not typical.

"It looked like a mechanical failure after a screw came loose, got lodged somewhere and the continuous friction from the drum spinning caused the metal to heat up. Anything on this planet can burn, it just needs to get hot enough," Kriel said.

"We cleaned the lint filter. But when I opened the back of the dryer, which was quite difficult, there was lint in places you wouldn't reasonably expect consumers to clean out every time they used the dyer."

He said there was no warning as the dryer had been working fine before the incident.

Last year the dryer was priced at $799, but after the house fire reduced to $450.

After Stuff made enquiries into the sale of the dryer, The Warehouse withdrew it from sale but it remains on its website along with multiple reviews from people claiming their dryer caused a fire.

One review posted on June 20 by MC said: "Worked okay for the first year. This dryer caught fire but luckily I was home to get to it in time. I am just giving a fair and accurate review of this item I purchased as, this was my experience with this dryer."

Another posted in November by Shaughan T said "great until fire".

"We've had a pretty good run with this dryer (wall mounted) until it expired and caught on fire. Lucky we were home and managed to get it off the wall before things got much worse. Staff were excellent in refunding under warranty, after 16 months."

Kriel said his review about the dryer catching fire briefly appeared on the website but was deleted last week.

Several reviews also said it was very noisy.

Kriel said he wanted to warn other customers who had bought the dryer to be wary of it.

"Keep a close eye on it. I know people may not be able to run off and buy another one, but people should be aware of this."

Kriel said he had since installed a smoke alarm in the garage where the dryer was.

He said The Warehouse's responded quickly and replaced the dryer with another Daewoo.

"After they had replaced it we did some more research and saw the story about the woman in Whanganui. We weren't comfortable having another Daewoo so The Warehouse offered us a refund."