EVAC-U8 recall

Brookdale International Systems is recalling all EVAC-U8 and EVAC+ smoke hoods.

"Recent tests have confirmed that the emergency smoke hoods could fail to work properly, exposing the user to harmful carbon monoxide which could seriously compromise their ability to escape the fire threat. Therefore, these products SHOULD NOT BE USED. The company is not aware of incidents where a user of these products was exposed to harmful levels of carbon monoxide."

Details are at http://www.evacsafety.com/recall/index.html. No immediate replacement is expected.

Bill D.

Thanks for the info. Your link is not good anymore. Goes to the Dupont default error page.

that link did not work - 404 not found

Does anyone have any details on this recall. The language on the website concerning the defect is vague and somewhat speculative. Does anyone know if there was an event that precipitated this recall. I have a few of these and given the lack of alternatives, I'm not ready to send mine in for a "partial" refund on speculation.

Even it is potentially defective, it would seem to be better than a wet towel or nothing at all.

Thanks. Craig.

I haven't sent my two units back yet, but the recall notice does state that it is not aware of anyone being exposed to harmful levels of CO due to this defect, so I assume that this problem was discovered during internal testing. Maybe a routine quality control check turned up a rare but serious flaw. I'm sure they do long-term tests, too, and maybe the catalytic converter in an older unit didn't perform well after sitting around for a number of years. Well, at this point, we'll never know, it looks like. I've looked for info, too, there's only speculation out there.

I haven't decided on a replacement smoke hood yet, but I do intend to turn in my EVAC-U8's. I agree, an EVAC-U8 is better than nothing in a fire, but protection against CO is the primary reason why I bought a smoke hood and if it can't be relied on to do that, then I figure I'll move on to something else.

Right now, the Safe Escape Fire and Smoke Hood seems like a good choice. It passes all the important smoke hood certifications, like in Europe and Japan (apparently the US doesn't really have one). The fact that they don't have a professional looking web presence (they sell through distributors) is sort of off-putting and makes me wonder about their quality. But I don't think they would claim to have passed all these safety certifications in all these different legal jurisdictions if they knew that they could get their pants sued off them many times over.

Doesn't look very portable tho.

-john

Yeah, I think the EVACU8 was the only truly portable smoke hood that is--is supposed to be--effective against CO. Portability used to be important to me for a smoke hood, like when I lived in NYC, but nowadays, it's just going to stay by my bedside, so I can live with a bigger model. Good point, though.

It's working tonight: http://www.evacsafety.com/recall/index.html