A suburban family says their dryer nearly burned down their Island Lake townhome over the summer, and it appears they’re not the only ones making such a claim.
Dryer fires are nothing new. When they happen, they’re often blamed on operator error, like forgetting to clean the lint trap. But NBC 5 Responds has found that thousands of fires connected to dryers made by Electrolux may tell a very different story – including the one that almost burned down the Rathgeber’s townhome.
“The smell was overwhelming, that electrical burning smell,” Liz Rathgeber recalled. “My house would have burned down.”
Unbeknownst to the Rathgeber’s, their 2007 Electrolux Frigidaire ball-hitch model was one of many models linked to fires across the country. A potential pattern Rathgeber said she had never heard of until she read about it in the fire report on her own home, where the Battalion Chief specifically advised investigators it was an Electrolux dryer.
"I googled the dryer and saw that it had been under a class action lawsuit," Rathgeber said.
The suit was settled for $8 million in 2014, and included Liz’s model, along with a list of other well-known brand names like Kenmore, Tappan, White Westinghouse, Kelvinator, Gibson and Crosley – all made by Electrolux between 2002-2011.
The suit accused the manufacturer of concealing a dangerous defect in millions of dryers, putting consumers at serious risk of injury. Specifically, that the dryer has a dangerous design flaw that traps lint in a place consumers can’t see or reach, perilously close to a heating source.
Local
"The lint goes completely under the drum and it will go to places you can't reach,” Rathgeber told NBC 5 Responds.
Electrolux denied the allegations and admitted no wrong doing.
Chicago attorney Ed Wallace, who litigated the class action, said the problem is a lack of transparency by manufacturers and lack of action by safety regulators.
"We're talking about hundreds and thousands of machines and across the country, literally," Wallace said. "I think you have agencies that are disinterested, and really don’t have a lot of teeth. In fact, a lot of times there have to be unfortunately a number of deaths to occur for this kind of issue to even get attention.”
Court documents suggest a very different story took place in Japan, alleging Electrolux dryers were recalled there 10 years ago because of the same problem. So why aren’t they being recalled in the US? Electrolux disputes that a recall took place in Japan, denies any wrong doing connected to the lawsuits, and would not answer the question: how many of these ball-hitch dryers are still in homes today?
A worry that remains very much on Liz Rathgeber’s mind. The family of four is now back in their home, after insurance paid for the $12,000 clean up. Rathgeber said she’s speaking out so that others are aware of a serious safety issue that she believes has gone largely ignored.
"The reason we're telling this is so that other people know that if they have it in their home, it's not safe," Rathgeber said.
Electrolux said its ball-hitch dryers are safe when installed, maintained and operated correctly. The manufacturing giant said it changed to a different design in 2011 “to meet changing demands.”
The Consumer Product Safety Commission told NBC 5 Responds it is currently looking into incidents connected to these dryers.
