Nearly had a fire with electrical heater

shoperholicnot

I have a 3kw heater which was on in the front room for approx 2 hours the other night, I fell asleep and when I woke turned it off at the wall and went to bed.
The next morning I tried to pull the plug out of the wall and was shocked to discover it welded to the socket!
It took me 10 mins to get the plug out from the wall and the plug is scorched and the pin that goes from the fuse is black.
Contacted the retailer and they told me to go to the manufacturer
and they have offered me £40 for a electrician to fit a new socket...
and a new heater!!! :mad:
I don't want one, quite simply I want it out of my house and my money back!
How can I go about this and do I have rights to a refund?
The appliance is just under a year old.

WestonDave

Your problem here is proving that the heater is actually at fault rather than your wall socket. What appears to have happened is a slight arcing between the plug pin and the inside of the socket which will have caused the heating. So was that because the pin in the plug was too small, because there was a faulty connection inside the plug or because the parts within the socket were worn and loose? They'd be perfectly within their rights to insist you get an electricians report at your expense to prove it was their appliance rather than your wall socket.


In reality a 3kw heater is pulling almost the maximum current you will ever get through a wall socket (go look for a 4kw heater - you won't find one because it would pull more than 13A) so any slight flaw in the connection over 2 hours is going to lead to a lot of heat. That is what has caused the scorching and welding.

Crinkmeister

Sorry but I agree with WestonDave. The fault is with the socket/plug connection rather than the heater.

esuhl

I noticed a similar problem with an electric heater that was only a few metres away from some laundry. The pins on the plug burnt me when I unplugged the thing.

I kept checking it subsequently, and the only way it didn't massively heat up the plug socket was if the heater was placed in a large open space, WELL away from any kind of obstructions (i.e. several metres away!).

societys_child

Contacted the retailer and they told me to go to the manufacturer
and they have offered me £40 for a electrician to fit a new socket...
and a new heater!!!

That's a brilliant offer, a faulty socket isn't really their fault.

shoperholicnot

WestonDave wrote: »

Your problem here is proving that the heater is actually at fault rather than your wall socket. What .

Thanks for your reply WestonDave, you are right, the difficulty is proving fault with the heater and not with the socket, I really don't think it is the socket though as I had the whole house rewired 3 years ago and all the sockets were replaced.
I have also heard of other people having the same experience with this heater. Really don't know what to do now apart from getting my own electrician in to check the electrics

shoperholicnot

societys_child wrote: »

That's a brilliant offer, a faulty socket isn't really their fault.

They are offering me the money to get my socket repaired due to the damage caused by the heater.
They have also offered me a new heater without quibble and they also want me to cut off plug and send it to them in a jiffy bag!?

Crinkmeister

Now that's interesting. There could, of course, be an issue inside the plug - I assume the plug came with the heater - already fitted? If the connection within the plug was loose, it could overheat and cause the damage you reported. Screwed connections can become loosened over time - especially high current ones.

Gordon_Hose

Take the money and heater, repair the socket, sell the heater as brand new.

thescouselander

Plugs and sockets do heat up when under high loads because the contact area on the pins is relatively small. As already said 3kw is a big heater and near the capacity of the socket. I bet there's nothing wrong with the heater at all but maybe it's worth checking the pins on the plug are nice and clean.

I think you've been very lucky to get money out of the heater company because it's almost certainly not their fault.

Avoriaz

One small if unlikely possibility is that there could be a fault or short circuit in the heater that caused it to draw more than 13 amps but not so much more that it blew the fuse or tripped a circuit breaker.

My money would be on a fault in the plug or socket but the above cannot be entirely ruled out without testing the heater.