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Oven Explodes In Southlake Residence

SOUTHLAKE (CBSDFW.COM) - A family's pre-Thanksgiving kitchen clean-up in Southlake turned into an explosive mess. Glass in their oven door exploded during a self-clean cycle on the oven, sending shards of glass flying through the kitchen. The report follows an iTeam investigation in September, pointing out problems ovens developed after using the self-clean cycle.

Nick Arizpe said his family has used the oven for more than year with no problems. About an hour into the first self-clean cycle Saturday though, he heard a boom echo through the house. He and his wife found glass all over the kitchen floor, and then beneath the oven door. The interior glass panel had shattered. Pieces were forced through tiny gaps in the bottom and sides of the door.
"It looked like it ate a bunch of glass and was just like spewing it out," said Rebekah Arizpe.

She got online after the incident and discovered dozens of similar reports of ovens failing, and glass exploding following use of the cleaning cycle. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has no recalls for the issue, but a representative said there are safety concerns, even when the glass breaks into small pieces. Tempered glass is standard on ovens, because it breaks into small pieces, rather than shards.

In September, the iteam spoke to homeowners who could not set the temperature on their ovens, or could not get the electronics to work, after using the cleaning feature. The Arizpe family said it was able to get Whirlpool, the parent company of KitchenAid, to agree to a replace the oven or provide a refund.

In a statement to CBS11, Whirlpool wrote that tempered glass can break if it was damaged from some impact. Even a microscopic surface fracture can spread, eventually shattering when the fracture reaches the inner and outer surfaces of the glass. The company said it often exchanges the product so its engineering group can inspect it. It said it continuously monitors product in the field to allow for improvements in design and manufacturing.

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