Consumer association says current safety standard is deficient

Consumer association Which? has slammed the current safety standard for fridges and fridge freezers stating it is “deficient and allows manufacturers to sell products that are a potential fire risk”.

While non-flame retardant, plastic backed fridges, freezers and fridge freezers pass existing safety standards, Which? says the “inadequate” safety tests do not come close to replicating the source of a real house fire.

The current British Standard requires refrigeration appliances to pass a glow wire test to assess their fire resistance. It involves putting a hot wire through a sample of the fridge or freezer backing material to see if it catches alight. All fridges, freezers and fridge freezers on the UK market pass this test.

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However, when conducting more stringent fire tests Which? found two separate samples of non-flame retardant plastic backing set alight after 10 seconds. In order to pass this fire test, the backing must be able to withstand an open flame for at least 30 seconds.

In similar testing of metal and aluminium-backed refrigeration appliances, neither caught fire after the 30 second test, or following a full five minutes or being subjected to an open flame.

According to Which? almost half (46%) of the most popular fridges, freezers and fridge freezers on the market have non-flame retardant plastic backing.

It reported the industry has recognised the need to toughen up safety standards but this won’t be implemented for at least 12 months, “allowing many more potentially fire-risk products on to the market in that time.”

The association has already stopped recommending the purchase of any fridge, freezer or fridge freezer with non-flame retardant plastic backing.

Its advice to consumers who already own one of the models is that refrigerator fires are rare with only 7% of fires caused by appliances were attributed to cooling products, and as such Which? isn’t calling for a full product recall.

However, Which? is now calling for manufacturers to implement tougher safety standards immediately and voluntarily, and for Government to set up a national product safety regulator to take responsibility for consumer safety.