Well, that company, Liteline, has had a recall on some of their other florescent fixtures.
Click the link after my post to see the recall.

I would suspect that if you call them, they would be pretty sensitive to another possible recall and may go out of their way to help you, alto since it could have caused a fire, it really should be reported to the proper safety authorities.

Even if they offered free replacement, I would tell them , "No Way", and have them replace the florescents with LED's---much safer and no ballast.

Now it will probably cost you some money to switch from florescent to LED's, but you gotta ask, "What's my house Worth", or my family's safety?"?

I had a very expensive electric smooth top cooktop, (Not Induction). One night it unlocked itself, turned the largest burner on FULL. The next day that succer was in the trash, and I replaced it with Induction.

That cost me a lot of money, as I had to redo the granite around the cooktop, but at least to me, The piece of mind I got, from having a safer product, was worth every penny!!

Gary

Here is a link that might be useful: Recalled Florescent Fixture

"had a very expensive electric smooth top cooktop, (Not Induction). One night it unlocked itself, turned the largest burner on FULL. "

This is something that I have worried could somehow happen with these electronic cooktops. What do you mean it unlocked itself?

Many, if not most, of the electric cooktops have a, "Lock Button" in the touchpad. "Theoretically", you have to keep your finger on that lock button for about 5-10 seconds to
"Unlock the Cooktop".

In the "Locked mode", one can NOT turn on the main power to the cooktop, nor can you turn on any burner.

Ours would start beeping at us, and give error codes, Like some electric cooktops will do when you are cleaning the touch pad or you spill liquid on it~~~~but we had done neither, (we weren't cleaning it and we had not spilled liquid on it), and many times we were not even in the kitchen when it started beeping and throwing error msgs.

We lived with that for maybe a year, I would scrub the cooktop in the area of the touch pad and "Maybe" get rid of the beeping and error msgs, but the beeping and error msgs would return.

Manufacturer was no help, they sent a main board, (which I did not think would fix it), it didn't & then the company went out of business.

We have a 2 story house, and I'm usually up here in my cmptr room. Usually I go from here to the master bedroom, but that night, (fortunately), I decided to go downstairs and get some icecream, and I saw the burner glowing Red HOT. With conventional electric smooth tops, the whole cooktop surface gets hot and had that burner stayed full on all night, I hate to think of the consequences~~~~~there was a dishtowel not that far from the cooktop!

I'm sure the problem was a bad touchpad, but by that time, the company was "Nowhere to be found".

With an Induction cooktop, even if it were able to "Unlock itself"~~~~(I've never heard of one doing that), then it would still have to turn on the power to the unit, then it would have to select a hob and turn it on~~~~~Not likely to happen~~~~but even if it did, No hobs would come on unless there was a pot/pan on the hob.

Even if a pot/pan were on the hob, induction senses an "over heat" condition, and would shut down.

So you see why I now feel "Quite safe" with my induction cook top"?

Gary

Thanks Gary, for the information and the link. I plan to replace with LED's very soon...

I'm going to have nightmares now - mine is also a smooth top that I lock after every use (cats not kids!).

Well, I've never read a review that had a problem like my cooktop did, and it was a very rare model, (Caldera), but to be truthful, I have not looked for any.

But if you are getting errors on a non Induction cooktop, I would turn off the circuit breaker for it, if you are leaving home, and keep pots/pans or anything flammable away from them~~~~~~~better safe than sorry, Ya thinks?

We actually had a "granite box" made to cover the touchpad on that cooktop, It had felt around the bottom where it contacted the cooktop, but It did NOT touch the actual keypad area.
We have cats too, so there was no way one of the cats unlocked it, We just felt safer with the touch pad covered, but obviously that didn't work!

Gary

This post was edited by dodge59 on Mon, Apr 7, 14 at 10:28

I guess yours is different than what I have. There are manual knobs not a touchpad for the burners. I am unaware of a lock feature but there probably is one. I use the surface like a counter but move stuff off when done because I am concerned the electronics could go awry in a way that would somehow turn them on. The oven is touchpad though and I do store some cooking pans in there.

Maybe burner knobs prohibit any firing up on a malfunction.

Well, with both touchpad controls and knobs this can happen. Frigidaire and Kenmoore had recalls. Ovens have also turned on spontaneously or not turned off.

Here is a link that might be useful: recalls