Fridge safety

Cold appliances like fridges are on 24-7, so it's important that they are used correctly and safely to reduce the chances of a fire.

However careful you are though, some fires might be beyond your control. To keep your home safe in the event of a fire, make sure your kitchen has a smoke alarm installed.

See our guide to the Best smoke alarms we've tested.

Fridge safety tips

To minimise the risk of fire in your kitchen, take the following precautionary steps:

• Refer to your appliance manual to ensure recommended distances are kept between your refrigeration appliance and the wall and to ensure there are no other obstructions that can restrict airflow.
• Make sure vents are not blocked and the area around your appliances are kept clean to prevent the build-up of dust and grease.
• Plug your refrigeration appliance directly into the wall rather than using an extension lead.
• If your fridge starts making a strange noise, don't ignore it. If you suspect there might be a problem, always unplug it and contact the manufacturer or a qualified repair technician.
• Don't be tempted to put your fridge in the hallway – if a fire does break out in your home, you need all escape routes to be clear.
• Fit smoke alarms: white goods are often left switched on 24 hours a day, seven days a week; a smoke alarm will wake you up if a fire happens while you're sleeping. You should fit a minimum of one smoke alarm per floor and fit enough alarms to cover all areas where a fire could start, making sure they are tested regularly.
• Fit a heat alarm in your kitchen – this will give you early warning of an increase in temperature caused by fire but won’t be set off by cooking fumes.
• Register your appliance – by doing so, you'll be informed if the manufacturer identifies any issues with the product you've bought.
• Be careful with refrigerant. Refrigerant is used in fridges, freezers and fridge freezers to extract the heat from the device. In modern appliances, it's used in very small quantities, but it is highly flammable and so needs to be treated with care. With this in mind, be careful when transporting a refrigerator and don't plug it in if it looks damaged in any way. To reduce risk of refrigerant leaks, don't defrost the refrigerator using anything sharp.
• Be careful if you're thinking about using a big refrigerator in a small room. In a small room with a big refrigerator, the proportion of refrigerant to normal air could get too high in the unlikely event of a leak, so will make the air more flammable. Common advice is to have 1 cubic metre of room volume for every 8g of refrigerant used in the appliance. The amount of refrigerant can be found on your refrigerator's rating plate. Your manual will tell you where to find the rating plate.

Flammable plastic vs aluminium-backed fridges: our campaign

All fridges, freezers and fridge freezers need insulation to keep cool. This insulation is flammable, so it's essential that it's sufficiently protected in the event of a fire.

All refrigeration appliances used to have backing protecting this insulation made from either plastic, metal or aluminium laminate, depending on the make and model of the appliance.

In 2017, Which? tested backing samples from more than 100 appliances, across every refrigeration brand we had on our website. We applied an open flame to each sample, and any product that was unable to withstand the flame for 30 seconds we deemed unsafe and made it a Don’t Buy.

In September 2017, we launched a campaign calling on manufacturers to immediately stop producing refrigeration appliances with flammable plastic backs. In the apparent absence of any action from the then newly created Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), we started conducting fire testing on refrigerator backings.

Hundreds more products also became Don’t Buys because the manufacturer either confirmed, or our own research indicated, that their backing was identical to a product we tested and found to be unsafe.

New safety standards

Following our campaign against fire-risk fridge freezers, new British safety standards designed to make these appliances safer were introduced on 11 July 2019.

Fridges with flammable plastic backs are no longer being produced, but it's still legal for retailers to sell any plastic-backed models that have already been made, and older models could still be used in homes or sold second-hand.

How can I tell if an older fridge is metal or plastic-backed?

It can be difficult to tell whether or not a fridge freezer, fridge or freezer has a plastic back.

If you own, or have bought or acquired a second-hand appliance, our tool below should be able to tell you what type of backing material it has. If the model you're looking for isn't in our tool (or for any reason you can't see our tool), we recommend contacting the manufacturer.

Please note: products made since the new safety standards were introduced in July 2019 might not be listed in the tool. 

Should I worry if my fridge is plastic-backed?

Those who already own an appliance with a flammable plastic back should be reassured that the likelihood of a refrigerator fire is very low. Our March 2018 research analysing government fire data found that only 8% of fires caused by faulty household appliances were caused by fridge freezers, fridges or freezers.

It's also important to note that the material used in the backing can allow an existing fire to spread – it isn’t the cause of fire itself.

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