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Man Blames Dell Laptop for House Fire

gizmodo.com — A Florida man has leaped onto the Dell laptop explosion bandwagon by claiming his house was burnt to a crisp because a Dell laptop ignited his couch on fire.

Who dugg this? Made popular Aug 22, 2006

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  • Pieman88, on 10/12/2007, -1/+33I bet there will be more of these pretty soon.
  • phoggey, on 10/12/2007, -5/+32Coming from a Dell employee (me), the problem isn't as bad as it might seem. I personally have seen hundreds of notebooks work fine and while 100s of people have claimed these have blown up, actually upon investigation, it's either arson or lies. There have been less than 10 confirmed cases of these blowing up from what I hear on the grape vine at work.

    However I agree with you, more people CLAIMING their house was burnt down by the battery is definately on the horizon as people are trying to cash in on Sony's misfortune. It's not our issue since we just buy whatever batteries are cheap at the time.. and Dell is actually very close to Sony in the business world(who is the other company behind blu-ray? dell).. Sony will be paying the most out of this recall
  • qster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23What an idiot, if he's lying and the fire deparment figures out the real cause he'll lose everything.
  • invader, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22it's the thought that counts...

    at least he *thought* he was funny..........
  • Kale, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Something smells fishy

    A. Leave laptop charging on a pile of papers
    B. Send kids away
    C. Know that you have 852 (or whatever number) of DVDs.

    Perhaps everything is legit, but something doesn't seem right.....
  • phoggey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I've worked for Microsoft (on xbox1 hardware) and Dell, and if you work for dell, just about anything you do is is part of manufacturing/test/development department, unless you put keyboards in boxes.

    At microsoft they had hundreds, thousands, even ten thousands of systems frying, sparking, and smoking. The power cable was a million times worse than anything this dell recall calls for. I bet you had no idea about that though thanks to the media. That is a HUGE problem.

    Also Christmas lights and ciggerettes burn down thousands of homes a year, KILLING people, guess that means that they are a huge problem. Where's the media coverage????


    I didn't say this was a tiny problem that didn't call for a recall, I said it's not as BAD as the media publicity this has been receiving. People number of injured or possibly killed as a result of this isn't as bad as it seems because there have been no deaths or injuries. The DEFECT in the SONY battery is a huge issue.

    And by the way, I said LESS than 10. It's infact probably closer to 4, although I can't say for sure as I do not work at customer care/escalations in india and the american customer care people don't handle the recall.
  • Pic0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12a)some people are ***** stupid.

    b)send kids away for a sleep over maybe?

    c)thinking out of the box, if he was a movie fan and had that many DVDs, he might really know exactly how many he has...
  • goat77, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Umm, you're confusing flexfuel vehicles with hybrids.
  • Crypty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Not funny.
  • zonk3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Well he better hope the forensic evidence proves him right. I was a juror in an arson case and was amazed at how much they can tell about fires from the aftermath. If he's full of *****, insurance fraud ain't worth going to jail over.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15Ok, so you are obviously not in the manufacturing/test/development department. 10 computers catching fire in a customer environment is a HUGE problem. In the realm of manufacturing/test/development, ANY repeatable manufacturing defect that slips through the cracks is a problem, even if it is something as small as the system not working. Now to think that the defect that slipped through the manufacturing and test process of a computer this time can actually hurt and even kill people, that is very very bad for a company. It may seem like "oh, that's not bad, it's only 10," but 10 exploding computers in the field is 10 too many. This is not okay. This does indeed deserve the attention it is receiving. This is a big deal.
  • Crypty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Well if it was the Dell, they will find out. Those detectives that go through wreckage are pretty good at what they do. Something like this could not easily be faked to frame a Dell laptop.
  • quietbob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8original story

    http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060818/NEWS/608180446/-1/Help0530
  • thebusdriver, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Im surprised it hasnt happened sooner
  • Pic0, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10pretty sure he could get out of that by saying "I'm not a fire fighter i don't ***** about what starts fires. it was just a guess cause it looked like it to me"
  • waytoorandomx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9"Child dies from third degree burns, Dell blamed"... coming soon, my bets on it.
  • acceptab1euname, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6If you've spent that much money on DVDs, you'd be an idiot to not know how many you had. Either that or too rich to care.
  • Kyderdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6thats kinda reminds me of:

    a. Buy a Dell laptop leave it on the couch..
    b. ????
    c. Profit.
  • CoolDude330, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8crap wrong reply digg me down :(
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6This guy just wants his 843 DVDs back
  • Cymrubeats, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Ooooooooohhhhhhh....hot fire, now that's something you don't hear about every day.
  • quietbob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"It moved fast; it burned hot," from Minnear himself.
    -talking about the fire
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5For everything else, we can rightfully blame Sony.
    One of my houseplants died and Sony took the blame with no questions.
  • jaypee68, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I know exactly how many DVDs I have. I have 223, including the 4 I just bought at Sams Club.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I have about 2500 and they are all listed/catalogued. I've spent too much $ to loose them all to an accident and not be able to get them back through my insurance.
    Regardless, this guy is probably going to be screwed when the arson squad find traces of accellerant where the fire started (not where this guy alleged it to have started).
  • techmaster7b, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6While it may be true that he is lying, I have over 800 dvds, and I know how many I have. 1359. I log every movie I buy into a database, so I know what I have and don't make any repeats.
  • Linkage155, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Holy crap, you spent ~$27,000 on dvds? (using the average price of 20$ a peice, $13,000 if 10$ each...)
  • Braxo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I wonder if a person could be tried in the United States for Terrorism if your laptop explodes on an airplane?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3let me get this straight...he went back in to get wedding pictures so he can be reminded of the hell he signed up for, but he leaves poor little elmo inside to cook?
  • pintomp3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4he could claim ignorance unless they prove he started the fire to collect money from dell/sony.
  • myheaditches, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Laptop usage should be strictly regulated to a water-cooled desk.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Note that times are tough in Florida because of the increasing costs of the housing bubble and taxes. Also note that spending $15-30,000 on dvds is not a worthwhile investment unless your house gets burned down.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I don't like confrontations on message boards/comments/forums so I'll try to be as civil as possible. You are correct about the other issues being problems. Some of them do get some media coverage, some of them do not get enough (if any at all) and deserve more. On the other hand, things like cigarettes burning down a house are different because of the nature of the product itself.

    I can't say much about the XBox problem because I'm not educated on it, but from the limited description it seems to me that a a smoking and frying system is not nearly as bad as an exploding system that catches whatever is around it on fire (then again, maybe the XBox issue was worse than you alluded). I'm sure (well, would hope) Microsoft had some engineers determine the cause of this problem and mitigate it or at least declare it not a safety hazard and merely an expense/customer service issue. If that is the case, then it is purely a business call.

    You are also correct that this is a Sony manufacturing and cost problem. That doesn't however negate the seriousness of the issue. I worked in development for a large technology company and things much less serious than this caused quite an uproar in the management chain. Even when a third-party component was root cause, it was still a problem that needed fixed, and it was still our problem in the end because it was still our product that the customers were buying.

    Granted, there has been a large media-circus over this event. But, I believe this is due to a) the company that is doing the recall, b) the vast quantity of products recalled, and c) the fact that people wouldn't think their computer would spontaneously combust (unlike the idea that a cigarette could catch something on fire).

    Wow, this is long... so in closing, no hard feelings. I see where you're coming from in the fact that it seems this is getting out-of-proportion media attention relative to other product defects, but I don't think that changes the fact that this defect is a big problem that needs addressed as it has been and does deserve attention.
  • wilf_brim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Needless to say, this is very fishy, to say the very least.
  • IHatePants, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I did a brief stint as a claims adjuster for a homeowner's insurance company when I got out of highschool. In Florida, to boot. This matters because insurance regulations differ from state to state.

    In Florida, they have to prove you did it on purpose in order not to pay. In fact, in Florida you can be convicted of arson in court, and the insurance company is still at risk of a bad-faith lawsuit if they don't pay. (Rarely successful, but it is still a risk.) I was the adjuster in a case where a guy was found passed out drunk on his lawn in front of the burning house, gas can and matches next to him. It still went to court. (He lost, but it was still money pissed away.)

    Again, everything I state about this only pertains to Florida, but he could claim that Mickey Mouse burnt down his house, and they still have to pay as long as he didn't do it on purpose. Even if he did something incredibly stupid that burned the house down, they can only fight to reduce the payout based on the principle of what a "reasonably prudent person" would do. Since this term (an official one in the insurance industry) is highly subjective, it can be dangerous to not pay out a claim based on that alone.

    Yet again, this in in Florida. Florida's homeowner's insurance regulation is highly anti-insurer. Back when I was last an adjuster (1998'ish), homeowners insurance companies were required to file their rates at a calculated 6% loss (i.e. a negative loss ratio), and were expected to make up their profits on their investments. Florida also has a rather stupid policy of preventing insurance companies from sticking it to the people who buy coastal properties, which is why people who live inland pay nearly the same amount as people who live on the coast and are bound to get smacked worse by hurricanes.

    Unless he doused his couch in gas and lit it, and then only if they can prove it, this guy is going to get paid by his insurer. They can't risk not paying him.
  • bullox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I just had my laptop on my bed for about an hour. I moved it on to a flat surface, and in fifteen minutes, I noticed a whopping drop of 2 degrees Fahrenheit on the processor, even with low processor usage.

    To qualify this a bit, I'm running an Averatec with an AMD Turion64 processor.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3ok.. Dells run hot as hell.. but noone should put a laptop near a couch anyway...

    i see people at school keep their laptop on their beds .. you lift it up and touch the bottom you will get a burn.. they need to vent.. esp. dells with the bottom fans
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Yeah, why do ppl do this?? They cry 'ouch' when they touch the bottom of the notebook after its been sitting on a bed for 3 hours, but are to stupid and ignoraqnt to make the connection between that and their computers exploding/crashing/failing.
    Stupid jerks. They don't deserve to have notebooks.
  • bwpayne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Maybe a legitimate claim? Keywords indicate otherwise: "Blames" "Florida" "leaped" "bandwagon" "claiming". By manipulation of rhetoric you have changed the victim who lost his house into a greedy opportunist.
  • tbmcmullen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Apparently that guy never used a MacBook Pro...
  • quietbob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"It isn't something you never think about," Minnear said.

    so...does he mean that burning down a house with a computer IS something he thinks about?
  • CoolDude330, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Oh, putting my hot laptop on this couch doesnt seem very safe. Oh yes, maybe if i put some flammable papers under it it will protect the couch!"


  • phoggey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yeah, the XBox problem was very bad. It burnt carpets (i saw pictures of a spreading out formation from a central point) that would be extremely hard to fabricate. I saw melted xboxs from the inside, and having a system smoke while you're sleeping and waking up to that is definately detrimental, especially when it happened hundreds of times. This was a major recall, and to this day they still recall that type of powercord (the fire started where the cord connects to the xbox). I am not aware of how many houses burned down from the xbox1, but I know of many tvs, stereos, and other equipment that was seriously damaged to the point that microsoft paid for them.

    By the way, battery problems have been problems for a long time. Dell shut down making laptops all together in the early 90's because they would explode on airplanes randomly. I was not working here then, but many of my co-workers remember it rather vividly as they are people with badge numbers that consist of 4 digits (mine is 6). So for two years they made no laptops until technology got better and they were able to test them more throughly. Recalls happen.. rarely.. but they are an unfortunate side effect to mass production when you're talking about millions of units.

    If anyone has a cost effective way to test to make sure 4 million batteries, bought from a brand name 3rd party, will work fine in your hardware, I'll reffer you to someone at dell.
  • Fett101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3They are not laptops. They are notebooks. Companies have started using that term for a reason.
  • CoolDude330, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Dont be silly, that only happens when you buy a Sony Vaio...
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I use my MBP on my bed sometimes but I put it on top of a Targus portable cool pad and text book for ventilation and better positioning. Even when on a flat surface I still use the cool pad for benefits.
  • IHatePants, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2btw- as a followup about the "843 DVDs": home owner's insurance policies tend to have caps per type of item. Chances are, he won't be paid for all 800+ of them. For example, many policies have caps of $5k on electronics, $500 on cash, jewelry, bullion, etc. The DVDs are probably included in a sub-cap on a specific category of property that will prevent payment for the full amount, unless he had them "scheduled."

    Scheduling is the act of listing each item individually and paying an additional premium. I had a guy once who had scheduled all of his valuable baseball cards. (Talk about a huge claim file to process.)

    This is why peole who claim "oh, I had $50k cash in that house that was just washed away by the storm surge" never get paid that $50k.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"but noone should put a laptop near a couch anyway"

    Surely you were joking, right? What's the point of a laptop if you can't use it near your couch or bed?
  • Fett101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm really curious as to why a person would have so many? Film critic? OCD? And how many do you end up watching within even a year of time? (i'm seriously asking, not being a jerk or anything)
  • avatarish, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2solution:

    Turn off laptop at night

    Don't mess with HOT COFFEE in the car

    Don't touch hot coffee unless it cools to desired temperature.
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