In message , Davey writes
That brings back memories! Yes, I remember Liddels very well. The place to go for rebores, skimming etc. I moved away from B/S in 1974, and have no idea what happened to Liddels. Not sure about that spelling? Could be correct.
There was a similar-ish business in B/S. Ashpoles, Southmill Road. I remember a holiday job in the factory next door, about 1968. Maurice's.
Just had a look at Google map. B J Ashpole is still there, but the area next door looks to be houses now.
It might have been with 2 'll's, I don?t remember for sure.
When I was a student at Loughborough, there was a similar place in north Leicester, but even older. It had the main power shaft running across the ceiling, and all the tools were powered by long flapping belts driven off that. Modern H&S would have gone berserk!
Just like the petrol station in the main road in Aldeburgh, which had a pivoted pole that swung over a parked car to get the petrol filler gun over to a car with its filler on the offside. I remember seeing it. Then one day, a man with a clipboard came and said that it had to go, as it might cause a fire. The fact that it hadn't had a problem since it was installed in about 1929 was no defence, so it had to go. Damned jobsworth.
The Engineer is coming tomorrow, Saturday, they tell me.
Well, you couldn't even if you wanted to - Hotpoint hasn't existed for years. The name in Euopre was used by Indesit/Merloni Brothers for a while (together with Ariston, Creda, and probably others).
Just recently, the name was sold to Whirlpool (togther with the legacy liabilities), and it's Whirlpool who decided they needed to fix this old Hotpoint issue. Given that Whirlpool might seem to have a different view of this issue from previous owners of the Hotpoint name, you might instead assume current Whirlpool products sold under the Hotpoint name would have better Quality Control, although that might not necessarily follow.
The Sale of Goods Act no longer exists either...
...however, Quality Assurance and Design for Manufacture are specialities that have come more to the fore in all industries. So things are getting better (unless you want to service things to make them last beyond their planned life)
No but a lot of its terms, adjusted for more understand and commen sense still do though the actual act name eludes me at the moment. Incidentally, in the case of Washing machines called Hotpoint, considering the single cold feed most have now, it should be called coldpoint!
Brian
I think the big question in this case is whether the fault condition is actually dangerous, ie could cause a fire. I can remember even back in the
60s, tvs were routinely tested for this aspect. The odd thing was that it was not the pcbs, or the wood in the cabinet that often let them down but glue and laquers used in transformers and the self destruction of some capacitors that caused issues. The backs just tended to melt. Brian
They have casued fires. *BUT* possibly because the owners haven't followed the makers instructions for use and kept the lint filter clear. Lint builds up, eventually falls off either in little bits or as lump and gets drawn to the heaters...
We have an affected machine, just looked at it. There is a layer of lint on the filter but also small light bits in the bottom of the slot just waiting to get drawn to the heaters.
Another design/ergonomic problem is that the lint collects on the side of the filter you can't see when you just lift the filter up a bit. You have to fully remove it and turn it around to check it. Yes, it's fitted the right way round it won't go in the other way, I tried. Thinking that it's a bit blooming daft to have to fully remove the filter to check it when lifting it a little appears to show a clear filter...
We just remove the filter and clean it every time we dry a load, so that is not a problem. But the guy who did the upgrade this morning showed me that there was a film on the filter mesh that he said was the result of using dryer softener sheets, and he recommended that I wash the filter in warm soapy water. This I did, and there is a big difference in the transparency of the filter mesh. Before this, there was always some lint getting past the filter, though, it would collect in the hose and discharge port through the wall. Now it's all clean, it will be interesting to see if that gather again after the mods. that were done.
There must be different mods depending on the perceived risk for each model. We reported ours (Hotpoint 5 years old) in late November and there was no offer to repair - they swapped it out for a new Whirlpool one early January foc - complete with 12 months warranty (and it doesn't wet the floor from the condenser seal any more :-) ).
Never noticed a problem previously though it wasn't used that often - the filter was cleaned after each use. Maybe the danger is associated with heavy use and neglect...
Chris K
On our un-modded machine only some of the air circulating through the dryer passes through the lint filter the majority doesn't. So unless the air path is radically changed I'd expect the amount of lint in the exhaust to be more or less the same.
Condensor driers are a bit more complex that vented ones and the impression I got from the recent news coverage is that the mods are not a simple task.
The instructions for continued use after you have registered an affected machine basically say clean the filter after every use. This implies the danger arises when the filter isn't clean.
I agree. We bought a Hoover washing machine from Comet some years ago. I put it on the hottest wash to make sure nothing remained from any stagnant water that may have remained after any factory testing (do they do any?) and it overheated, melting the soap drawer with the steam coming up from the drum - surely there should be a hard-wired over-temperature cut-out? Comet tried to insist on replacing it with the same make and model, which I refused totally and, as they had no equivalent available from another manufacturer, they finally had to give me my money back.
SteveW
If they are like the Hotpoint dryer that we used to have, there is a plastic pipe (about the size of soil pipe) running from the front to the back of the machine, where the vent pipe connects. That pipe was prone to coming loose and any lint that bypassed the filter (there is always some) built up under the machine ... which is where the air intake is, so lint builds up under the machine and clumps are sucked in and passed straight to the heater. We regularly smelt burning and found the bottom of the machine caked with lint, the heater cover containing lumps of charred lint and the pipe loose again. We no longer have that machine!
SteveW
He came along and worked on the machine; afterwards, my wife commented that it sounded as though it was now supercharged.
Today, I receive a request to fill in a Customer Survey.
What to say: "It still hasn't caught fire yet"?
"Hotpoint tumble dryer at the centre of a fire risk warning burst into flames AFTER an engineer had supposedly fixed the defect"
A relative had hers replaced with a shiny new one for £59 yesterday.
Hopefully hers was not one of them, but I saw one report that some of these 'new' ones were in fact refurbished old ones that had had the same repair done, and were then sold on as replacements.
You pays your money and you takes your chances. Our engineer did say that there was no dangerous lint build-up on our heating element. Maybe because we clean the filter after every use.
No, definitely new.
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