OVIEDO, Fla. – John-Peter Trask is down an oven and possibly $1,000 after he said his mom was heating up dinner when his glass oven door exploded.
“I heard this sound of something smashing or breaking. I immediately looked over and was obviously quite astonished to see that the front of the stove had blown out,” Trask told News 6.
Trask said the glass shattered and some of the pieces cut his mom’s leg.
“She was standing there, not right in front of it, so if that side angle is enough to do that, what if I or anyone was standing right in front of this when that happened? That could have been a devastating injury,” Trask said.
Trask and his wife bought their Frigidaire oven, manufactured by Electrolux, in 2020. The warranty expired right before the incident. Trask told us after the glass broke, the company offered to replace the door, but he turned down the offer.
“The previous pane of glass blew out. Why do I want another accident to happen in my house?” Trask said.
According to Trask, the company gave no indication of this happening before. However, News 6 found out there have been hundreds of reports of glass oven doors exploding. Not all of the ovens were Frigidaires.
News 6 asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission how many cases have been reported to the agency and which ovens were allegedly at the root of the problem.
We received this statement:
We cannot comment on specific brands. The statement below refers to ovens in general.
While CPSC has not issued recalls or warnings on shattering oven doors in recent years, we do take all incidents involving shattering glass seriously. Since 2018, CPSC has learned of more than 900 incidents describing glass oven doors shattering or exploding. CPSC recommends that consumers follow the manufacturer’s instructions and be careful not to bump or scratch the tempered glass in the oven door. There are standards in place for consumer products that use glass which should lead to the glass breaking into nuggets and not shards, if the product shatters. Consumers should report all safety related incidents involving glass doors to CPSC at www.SaferProducts.gov. Following review by CPSC staff, the report will be posted on our database for other consumers to see.
Judy Echavez, Public Affairs Specialist
News 6 checked the CPSC database, and these are some of the reports we found:
In April, a 31-year-old woman wrote, “I was doing the dishes. Started my dishwasher and then started to walk down my hallway toward my kids and we hear a huge boom like a gun went off. I turn around and our oven glass had exploded into a million pieces everywhere.”
The woman said the Frigidaire oven was not even on when it happened.
In August 2021, a 57-year-old man wrote, “GE Electric Oven glass door shattered while preheating the oven. This was original appliance installed as part of Builder/Contractor standard home appliance package in January 2020. I was injured while cleaning up all the shattered glass that fell to the floor in the kitchen area around the oven when I kneeled to gather the glass...”
In 2014, a 34-year-old woman wrote, “Frigidaire oven ‘exploded’ breaking glass all over our kitchen floor. Oven was not in use, nor was it hot. This is a huge concern, had any of our family members or dogs been in the kitchen at this time, they would have been seriously injured, if not worse.”
News 6 asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission why it has not issued a recall. A spokesperson responded with this statement:
Recalls are case by case. This is what we are recommending to our consumers:
Follow the manufacturer’s instructions and be careful not to bump or scratch the tempered glass in the oven door. There are standards in place for consumer products that use glass which should lead to the glass breaking into nuggets and not shards, if the product shatters.
Judy Echavez, Public Affairs Specialist
“It’s kind of like having a ticking time bomb in your kitchen,” Trask said.
News 6 emailed Electrolux about Trask’s oven. The company responded with this email:
We are sorry to hear of the difficulties the consumer is experiencing with our product. Electrolux Group takes the safety of its products seriously and we always want our consumers to have a positive experience. I will immediately relay this information to our Customer Service team so they can follow up with the consumer directly to understand more. Can you please send the name and contact information for the consumer?
All of our products comply with household cooking standards UL 825 and ANSI Z21.1. These standards recognize the glass used in every manufacturer’s oven door may infrequently break and so require the glass to break into small fragments with rounded edges if a failure does occur. Although we know that glass breakage can be startling, our compliance with these standards has ensured that when it does occur, the potential for injury is substantially reduced.
The main causes of glass failures are either imperfections in the glass, or damage caused during use. When we assemble our ovens, we always check for imperfections and take extreme care to ensure that the glass is not damaged during the process; however, sometimes the imperfections are not visible. In these situations, the failure will normally occur early in the product life and would be covered under the manufacturer’s warranty.
Following the first year of purchase, failure in the glass has been typically due to damage caused during use. Frequently, damage to the glass is caused by using the door to push in the oven rack or by an object accidently hitting the interior or exterior glass. Both examples may cause a weakness that could lead to failure over time.---
Owner manuals included with our ovens outline precautions recommended to protect the glass from weakening over time:
Special Door Care Instructions - Most oven doors contain glass that can break. Read the following recommendations:
Samantha Hamlin, Head of North America Communications