Most refs in Europe [ 90% in Germany alone ] use butane gas as the refrigerant which is highly flammable, a leak near the red-hot defrost heater or a leak at a compressor terminal is all you need for a really good fire.

We are seeing the little Frigidaire refs that are built in China that have Butane in them, there are even warnings inside the freezer not to ever apply heat or use any sharp tools in the freezer section.

See how easy it is to go wrong?  Even without meaning to.

Transformers DO explode.  The industry term is 'fault'.  Consists of high to very high potentials escaping from where they belong, exceeding the trip rating of the switchgear feeding them, accompanied by an immense amount of heat inside a sealed container, breaching said container.  In other words, exploding. 

I've seen it happen.  So have a crew of hapless firemen helplessly watching it burn for hours.  As though prescient, I awoke at 3AM just in time to hear a huge EXPLOSION a mile away, and the LED clock went dark.  Only one thing within a mile of my house to explode.  I drove to the substation and sure enough, 138kV transformer with 30-foot flames where the top used to be.

Here's where you're right:  Media covering a tornado, video of purple plasma on the horizon, voiceover says "transformer exploding".  It's typically not.  The industry calls that "faulting" too.  And there is a rapid expansion of heated gas (atmosphere) making a sound akin to thunder but with a 120Hz component thrown in. 

Here's why they say that:  They have to call it something their audience (of dummies) can relate to and they settled on 'transf explod'g'. 

Here's where you're also right:  EVERY time I hear media reporting on something *I* know in some depth, they misspeak to some extent and sometimes a great extent.  But to the bulk audience, the distinction is immaterial as it wouldn't understand the 'correct' terminology anyway, much less the physics.  Worse, from media's perspective, the audience would actually tune away because their ignorance was being exposed.  And if there's anything stupid people don't like it's their stupidity exposed. 

Which ironically is the root cause of the stupidity plague.  Media being caught in that loop. It wouldn't pay them to be dead on balls accurate.  (It's an industry term.  My Cousin Vinny.)

"The cockpit?  What is it?  It's the little room at the front of the plane where the pilots sit, but that's not important right now." 

As I mentioned in my earlier post many if not nearly all newer refs in much of the world use Butane refrigerant which is highly flammable and if a leak develops inside the ref from say a leaking evaporator [ leaking evaporators are by far the common source of sealed system leaks ] and then the control kicks on and the spark from the contact in the thromostat or relay if the ref has an electronic control and BOOM.

This could also happen with tragic consequences when you open the door and the spark from the light switch sets off an explosion.

[ Imagine being on a diet and sneaking down to the ref in the middle of the night to score some ice cream and having the ref blow up when you open the door, LOL ]

I would like to hear from you guys in other countries about how common the use of flammable butane is in refs where you live.

John L.

I was translating white papers for B/S/H when they started planning to make home refrigerators with flammable refrigerants.

They did an enormous amount of testing - both in terms of the manufacturing (vent fans and air flow and both sophisticated and mega-simple, fail-safe monitoring systems) as well as shipping, inventory, end-user.

Their engineers knew enough gas was present at the factory for an explosion. They knew enough was present in a delivery wagon on a train or in a truck for an explosion. They were unable, ever, to bring a single, solitary unit to explode with the amount of gas with which it was charged. Just couldn't get the air/gas mixture needed.

But - they (to their shock!) managed to ignite gas jets which burned long enough to set surrounding plastics on fire.

This really, really bothered them. Enough for them to change the composition of the materials, the rear wall and to reroute one capillary tube (at considerable expense).

Had I not been there, I'd have never known of it. It cost B/S/H enormous amounts of money to do it right. I sincerely doubt that the gas in a properly designed fridge, in an of itself can collect in the proper gas/air mixture to explode in the dictionary definition sense of the word. That, however, the plastics used and the awful construction and attention to safety (lack thereof) for which today's Hotpoint is known all contributed to one heck of a fire?

Don't doubt it one bit. That the melting plastic might have released enough explosive gas/es to make an explosion possible? Don't doubt that, either.

Is it possible Hotpoint had such a bad design that a pocket of R-600 managed to reach a gas/air mixture capable of explosion? Sadly, yes, I've seen enough of their trash in the UK to believe they'd make such a mistake.

So - realistically - no, refrigerators don't, all in all, explode. Can they, under certain conditions? Obviously, yes.

Is R-600 therefore a bad choice? Nope. Just Hotpoint.

I'm quite well aware who currently builds them and it will be difficult for you to convince anyone right at the moment that I'm wrong in my analysis of their product.

I'd like to see proof, too. What does matter is that a lot of people died because of a badly built refrigerator. If and why it exploded are questions to be answered.

US refs are still using R134A, most window and central A/C systems are using R401.

Outer shell condensers are not as efficient especially if you want to install your ref in a tight spot, with a shell condenser heating the outside of the appliance is like making the ref operate in a 100F+ room all the time. It is better to get the heat away from the appliance and now that condenser fan motors often draw less than 5 watts it is far more efficient to use a fan. A condenser coil on the back of a ref should not need cleaning more than every  5 years or more unless you have a very dusty house, light dust accumulation has almost no effect on the operation of home refs.

The ref in the London fire did not kill 80 people, the cladding on the building and lack of good exits and lack of sprinkler systems throughout the building were the main cause of the excessive loss of life.

Strong fire codes should be the norm for any country, where I live sprinkler systems have been required in all new homes [ even single family ] apartments and businesses built since 1990

I was able to visit friends and relations in Scotland and Ireland frequently until 2014. Many have Hotpoint appliances - they're familiar, they have pleasing designs and, like the old Sears here in the US, there's still a sense of value.

Just, from what I've seen, the most played out Hotpoint from the 1970s with just a bit of restoration is going to be a safer, better working appliance than anything put out under that name after 2005.

Is unnecessary.

First, for those of us working in the fields of or training/education in the natural sciences (the real sciences as opposed to the social sciences) the term 'explosion' simply means:

"an expansion in which energy is transmitted outward as a shock wave". 

Now that's really putting it simply but it certainly encompasses what I've seen left over after hooking up an electrolytic capacitor the wrong way. So, yeah - let's stop splitting hairs.