The start of Fire Prevention Week (October 7, 2019), I prevented a potential house fire.
It was a late lunch for my kids and I. Out of our normal routine, one of my daughters took a nap on the car ride home from some earlier errands. So she missed lunch. Just before 3pm I put in a clear glass plate with a small potato into the microwave. Next, I pressed the potato setting.
I walked out the room for about a minute to walk back to the kitchen to finish prepping the rest of my daughter’s lunch. With a front row view of seeing a spark and a lightening bolt hit the potato igniting a small flame.
Immediately, I flung open the door and I blew the flame out. I grabbed the plate with oven mitts and placed it on the kitchen counter next to the sink. In hindsight I should have probably put the plate in the sink by pouring water over it. Seconds later the plate exploded across the kitchen. Thankfully I moved to the other side of the room to avoid getting a glass bullet.
The hottest point on the plate remained on the counter. It was charred and upon further inspection I could see two sparkles of blue inside the glass. As I thought about an incident involving a foil wrapped Taco Casa burrito in another kitchen fire incident. I recall that young person placed a smoking burrito inside the pantry trash can closed the door which ignited a fire in the pantry. Leading to a costly kitchen fire in their home.
So I ran cold water over the hot glass plate. The two sparkles of blue went away. After picking up and sucking up all of the glass into my Rainbow I dumped it all into a bag which I placed next to my outdoor trashcans until trash day.
Frigidaire Warranty
My Frigidaire products came with our home. So I contacted Customer Support and they just read a script to me to avoid responsibility that something could be wrong with the appliance.
I admit my warranty ran out. I could have purchased an extended warranty. Although, I don’t believe I have ever really purchased an extended warranty on a Microwave before. After reading other reviews on Model No FFMV164LSA, it appears that others experienced something similar, but had more damage than what I had experienced. Essentially what I have gathered is that the Potato Sensor failed.
Customer Support did not admit there was a sensor issue. They suggested to contact A&E which could further assist me. A&E turned out to be an electrical technician service who only was interested in setting up an appointment to inspect the appliance for the cost of $288. Which is approximately the same amount for the same model. Of course, that did not include any parts and labor. That was just for the service to come out and diagnose my microwave.
My next call was to an actual master electrician that I trusted and he suggested that I put a cup of water in it to see if it would warm up. There was no significant damage to the interior of the microwave. So we are continuing to use the microwave. Although, we may not ever use the potato setting again.
We are very fortunate that this was prevented. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), one of the reasons for causes of structure fires is cooking fires. They are the number one cause of home fires and home injuries. The leading cause of fires in the kitchen is unattended cooking. Appliances are at 48% of the cause of fires.