Here’s another important item to add to repair pre checks.
Product Recalls and Safety Alerts.
We have several steam irons in right now (5!), and I started work on a Philips unit. Searching for a new hose+cable to replace the damaged one, Google returned a link to a Philips recall page which reminded me to also check the UK gov page for recalls.
While a lot of products get recalled before they are sold, some don’t and can become items we might be trying to repair.
Fortunately in this case, the model number matched but a batch/date code didn’t. The fault was poor welding on the kettle pressure vessel so risk of escaping steam.
It pays to not rush into a repair and do research. This can be difficult at live repair cafe events where you are fixing alongside the owner on an open system with live parts or pressure vessels, etc. Take a laptop or something to do checks before tinkering.
Product recalls are an interesting one. The ideal scenario would be that the register of recalls is checked every time - but that’s really impractical. A very broad generalisation would be that most electrical items that have been recalled after sale would fail an electrical safety test. For some things - particularly coming through via Amazon - it’s really obvious things like the plug or cabling not being EU standard. I would be really interested to hear other people’s thoughts and approaches to this.
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Agree, most are caught and lots of what’s on gov list are things like toys failing child safety compliance, etc but in this case the fault was not electrical it was a poor weld in a iron heating kettle. This could injure the owner when in a sealed plastic case. Risk increases when working on it if opened up.
Perhaps safe working practices is a good topic for next gathering or online zoom call.
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We’re currently working on a product safety resource and hoping to tie that in with an online event. Just working out who to get as speakers.
What would your advice be in relation to the steam iron?
Appropriate PPE. For repairer and anyone in close proximity. Repair cafes need to always consider PPE for customers if participating or I’m close proximity. Repairer should always protect themselves specific to the repair being done. So that might be different for a coffee maker with 6-12bar pressure vessel inside or a steam iron or steam mop with built in kettle.
Risks vary so much. Could be acoustic noise from an amplifier, steam boilers, electricity, charged capacitors, or dust from woodwork repair, etc. each risk relates to the item being repaired but also to the equipment being used. Soldering irons, lead fumes, mains power, power tools, chemicals, glues, etc…
We also had a chat about equipment or appliances that might risk someone in a less obvious way. Such as a small induction hob? What if the repairer or customer has a pacemaker or similar fitted. Proximity to certain devices is not advised.
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I’d agree this would be good, but it’s not something we currently do so I don’t have experience of how difficult it is. Is it the product search tools that make it impractical?
Coming from the computing world, it’s common to have to supply the model number & serial number in order to get support from a vendor, so naively I would hope there would be a similar register of model/serial information you could search… but I’m guessing that’s not the case 
Gov website is fairly easy to use and search.
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