EDV-500 Dehumidifier Fire Hazard

[Animal Mother]

I have a small safe that I keep some of my guns in, and as a precaution I purchased an EDV-500 Dehumidifier to remove excess moisture from inside the safe. After several weeks, the crystals in the EDV-500 will turn from blue to pink, indicating that they need to be dried out. The EDV-500 is then plugged into an outlet and has a heating element which is supposed to raise the temperature to a safe level to remove excess moisture from the unit and then it can be unplugged and placed back into the safe.

I bought my unit in June of 2007 and it has functioned well during the past few years, however, over the weekend, I removed the EDV-500 from my safe and plugged it into an outlet, resting the unit uncovered on a chair. The next day, when I removed the unit, I noticed that it was partially melted to the chair and had to be peeled off. the plastic casing was scorched and was elastic due to the unit being so hot. I'm going to contact the manufacturer as they warranty the unit for 5 years, and I feel I was quite lucky that I didn't have a house fire.

I would have expected that the unit would have a thermostat or some other safety device that would have prevented it from reaching such a dangerous condition. I am posting this here as a warning to anyone else who may have one of these to please keep them away from any flammable objects when they have them plugged in and to inspect them periodically.

 

[Owen Sparks]

Contact the company and send the picture.

 

[OcelotZ3]

Are those functioning vents on the top? Was the unit face down on the chair?

 

[elderberry]

When you say "plugged it into an outlet" do you mean a wall outlet..?? Since you say you rested it on a chair it sounds like you plugged it into a drop cord. With my admittedly limited electrical skills I seem to remember if a drop cord is not heavy enough to handle the current involved then things are going to get hot. I would expect that to be the drop cord that gets hot but maybe not..??

 

[withdrawn34]

Eesh. Glad it didn't spread. Small, electrically heated products like that always make me nervous. It is more convenient than the variety you have to fire up the oven for, but at least you are reasonably confident that your oven will keep its temperature in a controlled area (with that said, I wish someone would make a larger, plastic-clad variety that you could microwave. I could make my own... might be a small project I could do).

Let us know what the company says.

 

[hso]

Electrically caused residential fires are far too common. I notice that the unit has both CE and UL certification. You should also contact the Consumer Products Safety Commission and report this just in case there are other reports of similar problems. http://www.cpsc.gov/talk.html

 

[FROGO207]

Agree with HSO. I am a volunteer firefighter and respond to several small fires each year due to small appliances that are designed to work with electricity and due to malfunction burn up. I would say that you were extremely fortunate this time. There were some melt downs of a wall type plug in room freshener that was reported to us this year. I have even seen a wired in smoke detector burn up and cause a house fire this past year. You should notify the manufacturer and CPSC. Your help might even save someones life or home.

 

[Animal Mother]

Yep, I filed a report with the CPSC. I contacted Eva Dry and they would only offer to replace it if I paid to have it shipped back to them, I have no interest in doing that, so maybe the CPSC will want it.