Doing the dishes is no fun (for most of us, at least), which is why having a dishwasher is super great. But if that appliance starts to smoke and burn inside while it’s running, well, that’s not so fun. Just such a fiery experience is what one man claims happened with his Whirlpool dishwasher, prompting him to seek a recall from the company.

NBC 25 News says Greg was just running his dishwasher one night, as he usually does, when he smelled burning plastic coming from the kitchen. When he saw smoke coming from the dishwasher, he tried to stop the cycle by grabbing the handle, but claimed that the front panel was blistering hot, and burned his hand.

“What do you do, how do you stop something that’s arching and burning and flaming inside while it’s still running?” he asked. He shut off the power supply to the dishwasher and spared his home and family.

The news station says research shows more than 600 people have complained about Whirlpool, which produces Kitchenaid, Sears Kenmore, Maytag and Whirlpool dishwashers.

Greg’s lawyer says there is a defect in the dishwasher design that can cause the control circuit board to fail, which is what Greg says happened to his appliance. He and his lawyer want Whirlpool to issue a recall to fix and eliminate the alleged design defect, and have filed a class action lawsuit with 13 others to that effect.

Whirlpool says it’s a drop in the bucket, and that no serious injury has been caused by its dishwashers.

“We have found only a few dishwashers out of 24 million manufactured where the safety features did not contain the heat damage inside the unit. In those few instances, minor heat damage occurred on the outside of the dishwasher,” said Cynthia Soledad from the Whirlpool Corporation.

*Hat tip to Amy for the link!

Dishwasher Danger: Is yours safe? [NBC 25 News]

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