Friday, June 28, 2013

Story #6


From the Consumer Affairs website: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/emeril.html
Darlene of Worcester, MA on Oct. 8, 2007

I bought Emeril pans about 3 yrs ago. My husband and I figured we would splurge and buy a GOOD set of pans that would last a life time, but the bottom fell off the 6 qt. pan. Thank the good Lord that no one was carrying it when this happened. I have a pot rack in my kitchen. All of a sudden I heard a loud crash. I looked and there was the bottom of the pan from the copper down, lying of the floor. My mind went racing, thinking what could have happened if someone was carrying it to the sink. The burn to the legs and floor, not to mention the shock and then dropping the pan and it's contents. Emeril needs to do something about HIS product. His name is on there and he should be making sure this doesn't happen again. In the mean time. I want a reimbursement for this pan... it wasn't cheap as far as the cost anyway. And now I am afraid to use the rest of the pans in fear that this may happen to all of them and I won't be so fortunate this time.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Story #5


Jess of Minneapolis, MN on Feb. 10, 2007

While using it on the stove, the pot heated up and the outer lining fell to the floor as if it melted and burned the floor beyond repair. It started the rug on fire and the floor in the kitchen must be replaced. It resulted in molten metal everywhere in the kitchen causing burns to our feet as we were attempting to put out the fire.
This cookware is faulty and we would like to see some reimbursement for the faultiness of this product. There was an expected degree of quality with this product and obviously it is not there. 


Monday, June 24, 2013

Similar story #4 - Saute Pan Melted!

By Cathy Hargis, November 15, 2011

My recipe for a chicken taco dish instructed me to heat my pan to "very hot" in order to char tomatoes. I did so with my Emeril saute pan and as a result, the area of the pan underneath the copper band started melting. It literally created a river of molten aluminum on my stovetop. This is EXTREMELY dangerous. Check the consumer reports website and you will find several other people who have had the same experience. The copper band comes loose and the metal interior of the pan becomes overheated and melts. Some have even suffered 3rd degree burns from this. We received an entire set of these pots and pans as a wedding gift and will now be throwing them out and spending the money to replace them.

http://www.amazon.com/review/RHZOFZ1GU4H5S/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B001GD2YRW&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Be careful - story #3

By Sincerely -  February 20, 2006
Review from: Emeril Stainless 10-Piece Cookware Set (Kitchen)

The melting of the Emeril pan happened when the pan was completely supervised. Say maybe standing 7 inches from the pan. My intention was to put people on notice about a potentially dangerous situation, nothing more. Keep in mind anyone can write a review, even people obviously associated with the company who disclose information that was only contained in correspondence with that company. I have far more important things to do then sit and write reviews, but I felt that this situation was extremely dangerous. Just be careful, thats all.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2YEPSKYHYAGT8/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0000696JB&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

Monday, June 10, 2013

Similar story #2

this happened to me two days ago. with a cuisinart stainless steel pot.. it burned a large hole into my sneaker, and sent liquid aluminum across my kitchen floor. I have holes burned into the linoleum across a large area. Usually my 19 month old is directly underfoot. Usually I am barfoot in the house.
I contacted the company the next morning. Called them back with the model # of the pot. The customer service rep said she had never heard of this happening. But would not discuss the claim with me, stating that it was too serious in nature and is turning it over to corporate. I am looking for a product liability lawyer. They have indicated that they would take care of damages. I am outraged that this is something that can happen, has happened, and yet there are no warnings.
The pot was on the burner no more than 5 minutes. the bottom didn’t even burn out and get blackened. It is a bright cobalt blue! I have never…. I have quite of bit of money invested in this cookware. I have a few caphalon pieces, so i opted to use as much of that as possible this evening, but had to use some of the cuisinart. talk about anxiety. I purchased a gate to keep the baby out of the kitchen while cooking. Paranoid as I was next to the stove..

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Companies are responsible to make consumers aware of such occurances, no matter how infrequent they may be. Any other day, my baby would be in ICU with catastrophic burns, and in my panic, I would not have had as much control of that pot and would have sustained substantial injuries..

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Similar story #1

From the comments for the article quoted in my original post - http://www.home-ec101.com/the-curious-case-of-the-meltingall-clad-stainless-steel-pan/

>>
Lisa of Woodbridge, VA April 21, 2009
Emerilware with All-Clad Metalcrafters. Had two separate stock pots explode from the bottom spewing molten aluminum. The first must have occurred when in use by a family member. I didn't find it until I went looking after the second. The second occurred just shortly after I put a pot with water onto boil. I was standing right next to it when it occurred, first a popping, smoke, and molten aluminum on my range and my clothes. Fortunately, I was not burned. However, my family or my pets could have been potentionally harmed had anyone been standing next to me. The burner on the electric range. The bottom of the pot reflected an explosion. The burner reflected an implosion.
All-Clad denied any defect in the product line and blamed it on my range burner…what about the folks who have gas or smoothtop? This product poses an extreme danger to anyone using it. Time is not on your side, folks. STOP USING IT. I loathe having to destroy a gorgeous set of cookware I had owned for just a few months, but I won't take the risk and even donate it. I plan to destroy them. By the way, All-Clad kept the damaged cookware…never returned it, but I have pictures! I urge everyone who has had these problems to contact the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and lodge a Consumer Product Incident Report. This cookware MUST be removed from the market. Out the cost of the cookware, some 250 and destroyed the burner and the plug-in unit, which will run close to 100 to repair on my own, more if I contract out the repair.


Saturday, June 1, 2013


Here is the story that got me to start this blog, showing how Emerilware has managed the issue of one of their pan melting:

In 2006, I purchased an Emeril 2.5Qt Sauce Pan purchased in 2006 from Bed Bath and Beyond.

On December 18, 2012 around 7pm at my house, I started cooking broccoli on the stove (setting on High), and set dinner table. While I was eating soup with my kids (probably 10mns after I started the broccoli) I noticed flames coming out of the stove. I lifted the pan and took it away from the Stovetop to see what was going on. And when I did this, the bottom on the pan fell and liquid metal splashed all around the kitchen. 








Note that my daughter was seating next to this chair, it is a miracle that she did not get injured.




The interesting part was that the pan was damaged, but the broccoli inside was actually still good to eat.

After this happened, and after I had recovered from the shock of this happening, I called Emerilware.
And they have a very good process that leads to nowhere. Clearly they have optimized it to look good from the outside while doing nothing about the issue. Here is how it went:

December 19, 2012: called Emerilware to inform them of the incident. Left voicemail.

December 20, 2012: received email asking me to call them back
December 20, 2012: called back. Talked to somebody who told me that they will take a look at the pot, and that I will receive instructions on where to ship the damaged pot.
December 26, 2012: they sent a letter with shipping instructions
January 12, 2012: shipped the damaged pot to Emerilware
February 26, 2013: Received a voicemail from Emerilware to call them back. No other details. Since I was just starting a new job, I did not call them back right away.
February 26, 2013: Called back and was informed that Emeril has found nothing special about the pot and therefore they did not feel responsible for what happened. No explanation of what happened, no report from experts. It seems that melting pans are a normal thing, and it is my problem, not Emeril's problem, even though they are the one manufacturing these melting pans.
March 11.2013: Received the pot back in a box. No explanation, no letter there either.
March 18, 2013: Called back to ask for a written answer from Emerilware on the issue.
March 20, 2013: Received an email repeating the same story they had told me on the phone. Still no explanations of what could have happened, just a polite non-answer that means "go away"to me.

April 14, 2013: I did a search on the internet. And I find very interesting that a search on "Melting Pan" on Google (no brand specified in search) leads to this post in the first page of result:

>>
http://www.home-ec101.com/the-curious-case-of-the-meltingall-clad-stainless-steel-pan/
Something strange happened though, I stopped by to see her at work one day and she told me this bizarre story of how one of her pans had melted, the bottom plate fell off and the liquid metal damaged her floor.<< 

And then I remembered that I was given the case number 367 when I called.

After investigating further and finding 38 cases of people who had similar issues with Emeril pots, I sent an email to request that the case be reviewed and escalated. I also wrote a letter that I sent them through regular mail.
April 15, 2013: Received an email back saying that there is no escalation process.

So I am telling this story to the world so that at least people are aware of the issue. My Emeril pan melted and Emerilware does not want to have anything to do with it.