Exploding Oven Door

One afternoon I had set my De Dietrich double fan oven onto self-clean mode, which according to the handbook, can reach 500 degrees Celsius (pyrolytic setting). I left the kitchen as the process can take up to 2 hours. Normally I would have been pottering around, in and out of the kitchen. However this particular day, I had popped out briefly to pick my mother up from the hairdressers.

Upon my return home, at the end of the oven's cycle, I opened the front door of the house to be met by a strong, toxic smell and smoke. I quickly went into the kitchen to find that there was hot glass and ash (carbon) scattered across the entire kitchen. On closer inspection, the two outer layers of glass from the oven door had shattered and exploded across the kitchen. Pieces as a big as 3inches were lodged into the floor, burning a hole through the laminate. It was clear that this was a significant explosion as the pieces were flung far afield, the cupboard door below was burnt and even the curtains were covered in carbon deposits. The inner layer of glass was unaffected but the oven door handle was charred and in some places, melted.

Despite my shock at the explosion and my luck at not having been in the kitchen at the time, I immediately contacted De Dietrich customer services, only to be told that "the safety glass worked". I'm not sure what they consider to be safe, but I certainly don't think a 500 degree Celsius piece of glass flying out of an over door into my head would have been particularly safe.

The customer services department are in fact very local to me, yet they refuse to consider this important enough to investigate any further.

My insurance company instructed a loss adjuster to visit my home who advised that the damage caused would be covered, but the actual cause of the explosion, ie the oven, would not be looked into further and not covered by insurance.

I am obviously unhappy about the above, but not only that, I am concerned that this may have happened before, or happen again to someone less fortunate than me if they are in the kitchen at the time. This could kill.

This is why I have started this blog and would be very interested to find out whether this has happened to anyone else and whether you managed to get anywhere with a) De Dietrich and b) your insurance company. It may be that we need to take this further if nothing has been done. I would be very grateful for any comments regarding this. Thank you.