Steam Shower enclosure units failed within 2 years.

Ellogg

Hi all hope everyone is staying safe, thanks for reading and for any advice you can give. I purchased 2 units 1st was a shower enclosure 2nd was a Shower/Steam/Jacuzzi Bath enclosure to be fitted into the bathrooms at home in January 2018 all going well with a family of 4.

From August 2019 the 1st would intermittently sound the alarm, which is a function of the unit in case of emergency, when not in use and the controller lights would come on without any human interaction. This became a more frequent event to points when in the middle of the night while sleeping it would sound. It ended up being isolated from the electrical mains supply making its electrical features unusable.

In January this year I had just used the 2nd unit for a standard shower  before I was scheduled to work a night shift, about 20 minutes after having the shower I could smell a burning, checking all around the house I could not find the source until I went into the en suite, where the 2nd unit is located and found smoke coming from behind the unit and an electrical burning smell. The red power light on the control unit started to flicker and went out. I disconnected this unit from the mains power eventually the smoke stopped and the smell dispersed. This was lucky as it may have caused a fire in the house and I would have been in work and my family would have been sleeping.

Due to the dangerous nature of the fire fault and suspecting that the electrical fault on the 1st unit could also have led to a fire. I have had these units removed as I feel the safety of my family is priority. I feel that two years is not a reasonable amount of time for bathroom fittings and equipment to last especially stating on your web-page 5 year warranty on these items. Please find attached the photos of the steam control unit which on removal was the obvious route cause of the electrical fault. I have contacted the company for advice with these details and to cut a long story short been told as the units have been removed they can not offer any form of warranty, which seems that a 5 year warranty is of no use as the units are fixed and need to be removed to access the damaged parts.

Any help or advice on this situation would be great thank you again in advance.

Ian E

Below is an internal photo of the steam generator for the 2nd unit.

Aylesbury_Duck

Warranty terms are offered by the company, they are not the same as your statutory rights, so they can dictate how those terms operate.  It does seem reasonable that they would expect you not to start dismantling the units before they had a chance to inspect them in situ.  Their argument would have been that it should have been possible to electrically isolate the units without physically removing them.  What does the installation manual say about isolation?  I suspect it says they have to be installed in a manner that allows isolation for inspection, servicing, etc.  Were they installed correctly?  If so, why didn't you just isolate them and then call the company, rather than completely removing them.

I think your warranty is invalid now.  That leaves you with consumer rights.  To exercise those after two years you will need to arrange for an independent inspection of the units and if that inspection suggests the fault was an inherent one, you would have a valid claim for some action by the company you bought them from.  That would be a repair, replacement or a partial refund to account for the two years' use you've had from the units.

JJ_Egan

Consumer Rights after 6 months regarding your should have lasted longer claim .

VENDOR IS ENTITLED TO ASK FOR AN INDEPENDENT REPORT  or you can furnish one .

Warranty   separate to CR and dependant upon its terms and conditions .

What did the vendor say when you informed them of the alarm ??

Ellogg

Thank you Aylesbury_Duck & JJ_Egan for your quick responses.

Aylesbury_Duck
The main concern was the fire issue, the units come as a self-build unit with hot and cold tap connection fittings for water and with unit 2, 2 mains electric supplies required, one for the steam generator control unit which also internally incorporates the step down transformer for the internal control circuit (low-voltage system) and the high power steam generator. The other is for the Jacuzzi motor. Access to these electrical units is from the rear of the bath which is fix not on wheels so unless you station the unit in the middle of the bathroom needs to be moved to access. I also understand that for them to investigate, it needed to be in situ, my concern is that as in the photo the solenoid valve that has been on fire and burnt up is the drain from when the steam system, at the time of the fire this had not been used for sometime. Both units were directly wired into a switched fuse spur containing a 13amp fuse due to the loads of the Steam Generator and Motor, so at the time of the fire I did isolate them until I had the opportunity to have them removed to check damage, I did not realise at the time of the fire that they were still covered and still not 100% they are for the 5 years as this info I have found on there website since. I may have been barking up the wrong tree and misunderstanding the warranty issue but from a consumer rights issue would that still be a worthy case to follow as if not for the fire the unit would still be operational. How would that process of getting an independent inspection complete be done and by who??
JJ_Egan
The alarm issue was not raised as this was isolated when it happened with only the internal light system on this unit being used from an electrical point (again connected to a switched fuse spur with 3amp fuse as only powering a step down transformer from 230V to 12V) the requirement could be discontinued. I was the not knowing if the smoke and electrical burning smell was caused by the control touch pad on the 2nd unit that my safety instinct kicked in and I need both units removed so as not to risk anymore issues.

Thanks again 
Ian E

Aylesbury_Duck

It sounds like you have a reasonable level of electrical knowledge so perhaps one quick way of resolving this is to buy the replacement parts needed and replace them yourself?

Otherwise, to exercise your consumer rights you just need to get an electrician (not you, if you are one) to inspect the parts and if s/he confirms that there was in all probability an inherent design problem, you write to the retailer and ask them which remedy they would like to enact.