Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter: Whirlpool must ban faulty tumble dryers after spate of fires

Call for action: Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter says the faulty machines should be taken out of use immediately
Simon Webster/Rex
Kate Proctor25 November 2016

A London MP has made a fresh call to ban the use of faulty tumble dryers that sparked a spate of house fires, including a major blaze in Shepherd’s Bush.

Five million Whirlpool tumble dryers in the UK will be replaced or repaired but MP Andy Slaughter wants the company to issue a notice telling customers to stop using them at once.

Twelve months after Whirlpool put out a safety warning about its Hotpoint, Indesit and Creda machines, the Hammersmith MP has labelled its attempts to protect customers as “inadequate” and has written to chief executive Maurizio Pettorino demanding action.

He said: “A year on from Whirlpool’s decision not to tell their customers to stop using their faulty tumble dryers, it is clearer than ever that this advice is wrong and potentially dangerous.

“There is a clear and growing consensus of expert and professional opinion from the London Fire Brigade and Which? that these machines should be immediately taken out of use, to prevent any further events like the devastating Shepherd’s Bush fire.”

Huge blaze: the fire ripped through a tower block in Shepherd's Bush
London Fire Brigade

On August 19, more than 100 families were evacuated from the Shepherds Court tower block after a fire broke out in the kitchen of Sharna Defreitas’s seventh-floor flat. No one was injured. London Fire Brigade identified her Indesit tumble dryer as the cause of the blaze and has also put pressure on Whirlpool to issue an immediate ban.

Faulty dryers have been the cause of several house fires in the past two years. Doug McTavish, 39, and Bernard Hender, 19, from Conwy, north Wales, died in October 2014 following a fire at their flat. An inquest into their deaths is investigating possible links to the tumble dryer in the men’s kitchen.

Last May, mother Melissa Dooley had to run from her Nottingham home after her dryer burst into flames. Katrina and Matthew Draper’s Rhondda Valley home was destroyed by a fire in July.

Currently Whirlpool has issued a safety product warning advising people not to leave the dryers unattended and to clean the lint filter after each cycle.

The firm is urging everyone with an Indesit, Hotpoint or Creda dryer manufactured between April 2004 and September 2015 to check if their dryer is affected by the warning and register for a free modification.

Models can be checked on two websites — Safety.hotpoint and Safety.indesit — and a UK help-line can be reached on 0800 151 0905.

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