Dualit Toaster - potentially dangerous problem

paddyrg

Sorry to hear your woes!

I managed to set fire to my kitchen with a toaster, so now I always pay attention too!
Luckily I could clean the tiles, etc and most of it could be rescued.

The current toasters in my life are Sainsburys essentials - £3.50ish each, and they work a treat and have lasted a few years!

Freddie_Snowbits

I always leave my < chip pan / toaster > unattended and have never managed to burn the house down

jungliemac

I love mine but had the same problem. It's a problem I will put up with as I love the look of the toaster. I ordered a timer from eBay and fitted it by myself easily. Its a mechanical part and won't last forever but I've had mine for 8 years and it's used daily.

gregg1

italiastar wrote: »

I have a dualit toaster which was given to me a present. Earlier this week, the mechanical timer got stuck - ON - and burnt my toast to a cinder - fortunately my smoke alarm went off before it took the kitchen out. I contacted Dualit and they confirmed that the toaster was manufactured 4 years ago. They said that all they could do was offer me a replacement timer for £27, adding that "The Timer on this product is a mechanically wound part and can therefore, over time, lose elasticity. It is for this reason, we do recommend in our Instruction Manual that the appliance is not left unattended during use and is switched off at the socket when not in use."

Sad as it may sound, I'd always wanted a Dualit - to me they were (I stress were) the Rolls Royce of toasters. I could never justfy the cost, and was very pleased when I was given one. I never even considered it breaking so soon, let alone potentially burning my house down.

I've checked the sale of goods act and it only gives redress against retailers, not the manufacturer - I can hardly ask the person who gave it to me for these details as it may appear that I'm not happy with their gift. Also a search on Google for Dualit Timer fault and reviews highlights that this is a common problem - look at the reviews on Amazon.

Does anyone have any ideas as the company does not seem interested. I will try watchdog as this looks like a story for them

I am not sure what to suggest you do but I would say that I too have been having problems with Dualit customer services. We have quite a few Dualit products and recently had a problem with two items we had bought only lasting just outside the guarantee period.

One item was newly advertised as "re engineered" in their catalogue which, to me, would suggest a problem with the old version which I had got and which had gone wrong.

However, Dualit were not in the slightest interested in resolving the issues and were pretty rude on the telephone. I have been buying Dualit products for many years and it would appear that the quality of some of their products is certainly not what it used to be of late. I won't ever buy their products again.

neilmcl

I think you should check the date the OP was posted.

I'd imagine he's now moved on.

SingleSue

I don't even have a toaster...keep suggesting it as a Christmas or birthday present but no begger ever takes me up on it!

Guardsman

SingleSue wrote: »

I don't even have a toaster...keep suggesting it as a Christmas or birthday present but no begger ever takes me up on it!

Just tell your friends that you are getting married and you will end up with loads of them:D

gregg1

neilmcl wrote: »

I think you should check the date the OP was posted.

I'd imagine he's now moved on.

Yep, just noticed. Duurr:o

SingleSue

Guardsman wrote: »

Just tell your friends that you are getting married and you will end up with loads of them:D

They would all go into shock if I did that!:rotfl:

Married? Never again......

darlingjule

...you think the timer has finished because it has stopped making a noise. I think this is very dangerous

Agree, agree, agree. I still lose sleep remembering almost burning down the house with our (up to then) much loved Dualit (2 slice with toastie maker). We'd had it for about 10 years and replaced the timer once and various elements a few times. Not a problem to change or get new parts, but irritating -- though it made great toast and toasties, it was a very expensive piece of equipment and the parts should not have worn out so frequently for us - we're a family not a hotel.

I was, as usual, busy and in a rush in the morning. I left the house forgetting I'd planned to take my toast to eat on the hoof. All was quiet in the kitchen when I left. (As an earlier poster said, the timer goes quiet -- the same quiet as when the timing has finished, except that when stuck the elements do not turn off -- you either assume the toast has finished, or as I did, just forget about it.) Suffice to say, I was a mile from the house when I remembered -- not that I'd left behind a dangerous situation but that I was really too hungry and perhaps not so late that I couldn't go back and grab it.

The house still stinks of smoke. Our smoke alarms worked fine, but if there is no one is around to hear...

A few readers -- we've all known one or two of these perfect individuals -- will rightly point out the mistake was mine, even if the flaw was in the timer. But if that's the case, maybe only ocd's who can't help but watch (and listen to!) their gadgets should be allowed electrical equipment.

Why can't such an expensive toaster - or indeed any toaster -- be fitted with an automatic cut-out that is activated when the temperature gets hotter than any human could ever want his toast? Don't electric heaters have such cut-outs?

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