Hotpoint tumble dryer fire PRE recall

Smegreg

I've just sent this to QOTW but thought I may get more ideas from the forums too....

I had a Hotpoint tumble dryer. In April 2013 it caught fire and damaged half of our house. The house insurance was claimed on but our coverage was not great. So financially we were still out of pocket. (It was not new for old, and for example, they would only pay for half the old kitchen, as one half wasn’t fire damaged -but you can’t buy half a kitchen!)

Since then, obviously in 2015 Hotpoint was one of the companies who came out admitting that some of its tumble dryers were dangerous.

Do I have grounds to complain and appeal that they should be providing compensation for the money we were never able to claim back?



Any ideas?

Bogalot

Do you have evidence of an inherent fault, and if so, why did you not contact them at the time?

LilElvis

You might be out of time as I believe you had 3 years in which to lodge a claim. I'm sure someone else will be along to confirm whether this is correct.

powerful_Rogue

LilElvis wrote: »

You might be out of time as I believe you had 3 years in which to lodge a claim. I'm sure someone else will be along to confirm whether this is correct.

Wouldn't it be 6 years? Thought 3 years was only for personal injury.

As pointed out above, unless you have a report stating the tumble dryer was inherently faulty which lead to the fire, I don't think you have much hope of a claim.

LilElvis

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

Wouldn't it be 6 years? Thought 3 years was only for personal injury.

As pointed out above, unless you have a report stating the tumble dryer was inherently faulty which lead to the fire, I don't think you have much hope of a claim.

I looked it up a bottle of wine ago so stupidly can't find the link.

It was 3 years to claim for damage to property. Presumably, like personal injury, this would be from the time of the incident.

unholyangel

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

Wouldn't it be 6 years? Thought 3 years was only for personal injury.

As pointed out above, unless you have a report stating the tumble dryer was inherently faulty which lead to the fire, I don't think you have much hope of a claim.

3 years from the date of damage or from the date when you were aware (or should have reasonably been aware) that the defective product was responsible for the damage (whichever is the latter) with a long stop of 10 years. But statute barred is a defence rather than a restriction. Judges have the discretion to waive them (as long as the long stop limitation hasnt been reached).

However we're potentially talking about a fair sum - OPs insurers sound like they may possibly be a bit cowboyish which could have left OP considerably out of pocket. Depending on the amount involved, it might be worth even paying for proper advice.

Zandoni

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

Wouldn't it be 6 years? Thought 3 years was only for personal injury.

As pointed out above, unless you have a report stating the tumble dryer was inherently faulty which lead to the fire, I don't think you have much hope of a claim.

It's pretty well documented how dangerous these tumble dryers can be.

shaun_from_Africa

Do the fire brigade issue some sort of report following house fires that they have attended stating what they think was the cause of the fire?
I've never had the need to call them out so I have no idea what happens following a fire.
If not, it may well be very difficult, if not impossible to get Hotpoint to acknowledge the fact that it was one of their products that started the blaze.

lincroft1710

Zandoni wrote: »

It's pretty well documented how dangerous these tumble dryers can be.

How many in the UK have actually caught fire? Of these how many fires can be attributed to the owner not cleaning the machine properly after use?

The OP may well have a case against the manufacturer, but 3 years after the event, there is probably no evidence of exactly how the fire started. If the fire clearly started because of an inherent fault in the machine rather than user neglect then I agree they should consider suing for their uninsured losses.

Fosterdog

Zandoni wrote: »

It's pretty well documented how dangerous these tumble dryers can be.

Actually it is well documented how dangerous all tumble dryers can be, most of the fires related to them are due to poor maintenance and leaving them unattended which shouldn't be done. The actual figures with the recalled ones were something like 750 fires caused by the potential fault out of almost 5 million machines over a 12 year period. There were however over 2000 tumble dryer related fires over a two year period, that's closer to an average of 3 fires each day.

I would say the odds are much higher that OPs fire wasn't actually caused by the known safety issue but because of one of the other more common reasons for a dryer catching fire.

This is coming from someone who had a tumble dryer catch fire and had to carry it out of the house at 6:30 in the morning with it still on fire to stop my whole house going up, it wasn't one of the models affected by the now well known safety issue, it was a different brand altogether. I don't know whether it was caused by a mechanical failure or whether OH forgot to clean the filter before putting it on and going but if I didn't have smoke alarms to wake me up I probably would have died in my sleep without ever knowing there was a fire downstairs.

People need to be more sensible with appliances that are designed to get very hot and also have a fuel source causing a potential fire threat.

Zandoni

lincroft1710 wrote: »

How many in the UK have actually caught fire? Of these how many fires can be attributed to the owner not cleaning the machine properly after use?

The OP may well have a case against the manufacturer, but 3 years after the event, there is probably no evidence of exactly how the fire started. If the fire clearly started because of an inherent fault in the machine rather than user neglect then I agree they should consider suing for their uninsured losses.

Hotpoint have admitted there's a problem with their machines and they have produced faulty units for over 12 years. They should be designed so that they do not turn on if the filter is full, it's just bad design.

I'd suggest that the repair programme admits an inherent fault has already been established.