Amana wall air conditioners recalled

Daikin Comfort Technologies Manufacturing is recalling about 4,633 Amana through-the-wall air conditioners and heat pumps in the United States because a circuit on the control board can short and emit flames.

The defect

The Consumer Product Safety Commission's notice names the component: the snubber circuit can emit flames if it shorts, posing a risk of serious injury from fire. The company has received two reports of a component on the control board shorting. No injuries have been reported.

A further 126 units were sold in Canada.

Where these units are

This is not a window unit most households buy for themselves. Through-the-wall air conditioners and heat pumps of this type are installed in the fabric of a building, and the notice says they are most often found in hotels, apartment buildings and commercial spaces.

That changes who has to act. If you live in an apartment with one of these units, the equipment almost certainly belongs to the building rather than to you, and the recall is the landlord's to process. Reporting it to the building manager, in writing, is the useful step, and it is worth doing rather than assuming the owner has seen the notice.

Identifying an affected unit

The products are white and carry the Amana brand name on most units' control covers. The model and serial numbers are on a white sticker on the front of the unit, at the front edge of the base pan. The CPSC notice lists the model number prefixes covered by the recall; match both numbers before acting, because Amana through-the-wall units of other model ranges are not part of this recall.

The remedy

A full refund of the unit. Daikin asks consumers to stop using the product immediately, submit a refund request with contact details, cut the product's cord, and upload a photograph of the serial number and of the cut cord.

Cutting the cord is standard in recalls where the hazard cannot be repaired and the product must not be resold or passed on. It also means the refund process is one-way: once the cord is cut, the unit is finished, so confirm the model is in the recall before doing it.

The wider point about fire recalls

Two shorting reports and no injuries is exactly the stage at which a recall is most useful, and least likely to be acted on. A unit in a hotel corridor or a rented apartment is nobody's personal property, which is how recalled equipment stays in service for years.

The live recall index carries this notice with the newest recalls from the FDA, CPSC, NHTSA and the Food Safety and Inspection Service, and how to get a refund or repair after a CPSC recall explains what the company can ask for before it pays.