Indesit Moon caught fire

[dasyurus]

We had an Indesit moon for about 10 years now. It did not get a lot of hard use only used the weekends. It was not overloaded.

I would like to warn anyone on these machines on that ours nearly set on fire. It was used a couple of times the day before and was all fine. Loaded it up the next day and when returned to take clothes out after, it was showing no lights on the dial, but there was steam and smoke coming over the top of the machine. I immediately switched of at the plug but and opened the door after a few minutes. All the cloths ofc were ruined the heat coming from it was immense, I could feel the heat though our stair case which the machine was placed under. I had to use 2 sets of garden rubber gloves to remove what was in the drum. We were lucky that we were in at the time to check on it otherwise things would have been a lot worse. I understand that it is an old machine but were was the cut out on the heater, motor or what ever was heating up our cloths I ask, it should have not stayed on after its wash cycle had finished. I am reporting this as I have no response back from Indesit and probably wont, but would just like to warn people out there if it has happened once it may happen again to yours or it may have already happened already.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Yes it is fortunate you were in. My advice has always been to never leave any washing machine, dishwasher or tumble dryer running when no one is in the house or everyone is in bed - make no mistake these appliances cause a lot of house fires and people generally still don't seem to get that. 

Washing machines can suffer from pressure system faults (mostly blockages of gunge) that can allow the washing machine's heating element to come on with no water inside the machine. These days they all have plastic outer tubs which makes things worse. To my knowledge there are no built in safety devices to quickly counter this such as trip switches on the element. I don't understand why!!