Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
tbf, 2,600,000 washing machines are sold in the UK each year, so if we conservatively estimate that most last about five years, that's a washing machine population of 13,000,000.
According to the linked stats, there were 1,723 washing machines stated at causing a fire over a period of 39 months, so that's about 530 per year, or around 1 in 24,528, or to put it another way, 0.00004% per year.
Whilst any household fires are bad, the likelihood is very low.
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Of course, but as we have seen, 5 million tumble driers (admittedly, some may not be in service now) DO have a fire causing defect and is a problem going back 10 years. Despite this, the rate of failure/fire rate is still low, but that doesn't mean something shouldn't be done.
Besides, I'm not one for complacency. There's way more TV sets, just as many fridges, freezers, and cookers in use in the UK and all of these devices cause less fires yet see comparable amount of use. Considering that washing machines and tumble driers consistently have been the top causes of accidental houses fires, it is high time to look into additional safety measures. After all, it may "only" be 3,000 fires, but the cost of these fires in monetary and human costs is very high indeed.