
Angela of Milwaukee, WI on Dec. 29, 2010
In February 2010, I purchased a Frigidaire stainless steel gas range model FGF364KCB from Best Buy. I purchased this particular model for two reasons: One, it had the look I was looking for. Two, the surface of the range was mounted to the stove top to prevent spills from entering into the range. Boy was I ever fooled! Always remember that looks can be very deceiving or should I say, if looks could kill. On 12/18/10 around 2:00 in the afternoon, my fiance was frying some French Fries when he noticed smoke coming from the stove top. He called me in from the living room and said the oven was smoking. I ran in there and smoke indeed was pouring out the stove. We kept trying to leave the surface and fail. Finally, it dawned on us that we need to unscrew the surface.
He unplugged the stove and turned off the gas. We didn't have any tools at home, so I drove to my mother's house which thank God was only 5 minutes away, praying when I get back, my fiance and house wasn't on fire. When I got back, he had to use a screwdriver and a ratchet set to unscrew everything and finally, we were able to leave the surface top up. When we opened it up, we couldn't believe what we saw. There was insulation (foaming) directly underneath the surface which was causing the stove to smoke.
He poured water onto the padding to put the burning out. The smoke was so strong, we were crying, coughing. It was just unbelievable! How could they sell a stove with padding directly underneath the igniters with no barriers or anything between the two? We called Frigidaire to express our feelings about this matter letting them know this was a fire hazard and Nicole, the representative, seemed to be emphatic but made a comment to us and said there is always two sides to a story. I couldn't believe she said that after all we went through with the stove.
So a week later, we decided to try the stove and not the burners so at least we could have one home cooked meal and the unthinkable happened again. This time, the stove smoked more and now the smell was unbearable. Luckily, we still had the tools and we were able to open it again and this time, the burn was much bigger. My fiance was able to pour water on it to put it out. The smell was so bad this time we had to open every window and door in the house. Our eyes were burning, our noses were running uncontrolled. We were coughing and feeling faint but we had to put the burn out again. We both felt so sick that we laid down in front of a window to get fresh air and the temperature was like 15 degrees, but we didn't even care.
We wanted to call the fire department but were afraid they would chop the stove up which as this point, I guess it wouldn't matter. Here it is four days later and the house still smells bad, we can't use the stove and the repair people are supposed to come out on Jan. 5th. Please don't buy this stove, you will not be happy and we are lucky to talk about it, but we could have died from smoke ventilation and probably carbon monoxide poisoning. Research your products and be safe.