[justjim]

Originally Posted by Phanatic Luvr

Taken directly from the on-line news:
It was a Whirlpool side-by-side refrigerator that exploded Saturday making a Village of Fernandina home uninhabitable.

The model number of the refrigerator is WRS32FDAM.

The owners of the home on Thunderbird Way, David and Sandra Hess, were out at the time of the explosion and fire which left the interior of their home severely damaged.

In the aftermath of the incident, they initially were staying with friends but have located a rental property not too far from their residence.

The kitchen was heavily damaged in the explosion.
The kitchen was heavily damaged in the explosion.

According to Consumer Reports, appliance fires, not related to human error, are more common than one might think.

Jack Sanderson, president of Fire Findings, a forensic engineering laboratory in Benton Harbor, Mich. in 2012 told Consumer Reports that more refrigerators are ending up in his labs for analysis.

“It usually has to do with components associated with new compressors,” he says. “I can’t tell you what the problem is exactly, but manufacturers have obviously made a design change that’s having unintended consequences.”

People don’t normally think of refrigerators as posing much fire danger, but Sanderson says they have heaters and draw plenty of current. And once the electrical components catch fire, he says, plastics in the rest of the appliance provide more fuel.

Thanks for this post. Although I believe a refrigerator explosion is still very rare, apparently it does happen, and as far as I know, this is the first reported such incident in The Villages.

Iam sure we will hear more discussion and get more facts about this in the future. If the resident had been home, this could have been a real tragedy.