Ask the Question

indigo_willow · Joined: 24 Jun 2008 Posts: 2 Location: Glasgow

Hi there,

I have just found this site whilst searching for answers to a problem regarding a new electric cooker. *waves to everyone*

My friend bought a 'New World 50ESO Silver Electric Cooker' at the start of the year and a couple of months after the cooker arrived there was a bit of an accident.

My friend had put about one litre of dirty chip pan oil in a plastic bowl for storage until she had time to dispose of the oil correctly, and whilst she was cleaning the kitchen she placed the bowl of oil inside the oven so that she would not knock it over. You may know what I am going to say next; she forgot about the plastic bowl of oil and never removed it from the oven. Next day at supper time, she put the oven on to pre-heat at around 220 degrees in preparation for cooking oven chips. After about 20 minutes there was a particularly caustic smell belching out from the kitchen and my friend and I ran to the kitchen.

The kitchen was filled with black smoke and there was oil and liquid plastic pouring through the oven door onto the floor. When we opened the door, as you can imagine, we were confronted with an horrific sight - a melted bowl and oil pooled in the bottom of the oven. There were fumes belching from the cooker and everything was liquified.

We let it cool a little and my friend was able to scrape off the melted plastic, and she spent many nights cleaning oil that was appearing from underneath the appliance.

After there seemed to be no more oil to come she tried several times to test the oven, but she is worried of a fire as black smoke belches out the appliance as soon as it heats up, not from the oven, but from around the hob area strangely.

I think a lot of oil has managed to get into the part of the appliace underneathe the oven and has covered the element or something. We both don't know anything about cookers and don't know if it is safe to keep heating the cooker up (I believe it will just over-heat and blow up though), we were hoping we could burn all the oil away by repeatedly heating it. We can't get access to the inner workings of the cooker to clean that area and are in no way qualified to do so, but want to avoid calling an electrician as we don't want to call someone out if this is a lost cause.

Does anyone know if it is safe for my friend to keep heating the oven in hope that it will eventually stop smoking? Or is it a complete fire hazzard? Should we just dispose of the appliace and my friend buy a new one?

If anyone else has had this kind of unfortunate occurence I would appreciate knowing what happened and if you have any ideas or if someone qualified could state catagorically if trying to save this cooker is a waste of time I would like to know as my friend has now been without a cooker for many months.

Thanks for you time,
Yvonne.

AlanE · Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 8:42 pm Post subject:

I would be thinking along the lines of an accidental damage claim on household insurance policy.

vince knight · Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:05 pm Post subject:

You read my mind Alan Smile

JonB · Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 56 Location: Cleveland UK

We are with Virgin INS. and it would have been covered.
Razz

indigo_willow · Joined: 24 Jun 2008 Posts: 2 Location: Glasgow

Thanks for the replies guys, I don't think she has house contents insurance at the moment, but I'll ask her.

So I take it the cooker is for the scrappy then? Rolling Eyes