An angry homeowner is calling out an appliance company for a stovetop that started a fire in their home.
Eddie Hall of Rocky Hill, Connecticut, told WFSB that his LG Freestanding Double Oven Electric Range was responsible for a fire in late March that terrified the family.
The Rocky Hill fire marshal's investigation confirmed the fire started at the stovetop after the knobs at some point were turned on, accidentally igniting pizza boxes sitting on top of the stove. Hall believes the knobs may have unintentionally been turned on by teenagers microwaving the pizza or the family's dogs.
The specific model owned by Hall was installed in 2023, but it was recalled in February because of the knob issue, noting they "can be activated by accidental contact by humans or pets, posing a fire hazard," per WFSB.
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The current fix is adding a free warning label advising caution and to use the stove's lock feature to prevent accidents. That was something Hall said he also had been having issues with and was seeking to have repaired at the time of the fire.
In a statement to the outlet, LG said: "LG is educating consumers about our unique safety feature (called Control Lock or Lock Out) on LG ranges with front-mounted knobs. This is not a traditional 'recall.' In cooperation with the CPSC [Consumer Product Safety Commission], LG is providing a more prominent label that reminds consumers to use this exclusive LG function that will disable the activation of the heating elements when the range is not in use."
"I think LG should be held responsible for it," said Hall of the incident. "They risked all the children's lives in there."
While this is an unfortunate incident, electric stoves have plenty of benefits worth considering. Traditional gas stoves have been shown to have a significant impact on people's respiratory health because of the accumulation of certain fumes and compounds, including nitrogen dioxide, according to Scientific American.
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An even better option is to go with an induction stove, which, according to the Department of Energy, is up to three times more efficient than gas stoves and 10% more efficient than electric ranges, meaning that energy bills for using induction are significantly lower. According to The New York Times, induction stoves are also safer because only pots and pans heat while you cook, while the surface of the stove top remains cool.
LG offers several induction models, and there are money-saving incentives available through the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers $840 for upgrading to an induction stove. The IRA incentives may not always be available, depending on the decisions of the current administration and Congress, so it's best to take advantage of them while they're still available.
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