Space Heater Recalls: The Models Affected and How to Check Yours

Portable electric heaters are cheap, sold everywhere and left running for hours, often unattended. Since 2024 the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced recalls covering several hundred thousand of them. This is a plain-English summary of those notices, what each company is offering, and how to check the heater in your own home before the cold weather starts.

The main space heater recalls since 2024

The figures and remedies above come from the CPSC notices listed under Sources. We could not confirm which remedy programs are still open, so check the notice or contact the company. The Govee figure is given as “more than 500,000” because we saw the exact count only in news reports of the notice.

Two older recalls still worth checking

Heaters last for years, and they are handed on to relatives and sold second-hand. Two earlier recalls involved large numbers:

• Vornado VH101 heaters. About 350,000 were recalled in 2018. The CPSC re-announced the recall that August after a 90-year-old man in Minnesota died in a fire involving one of the heaters.
• AmazonBasics 1500-watt ceramic heaters. About 377,000 were recalled in 2019 after 30 reports of overheating, burning or sparking. No injuries were reported.

How to check your heater

1. Unplug the heater and let it cool. Turn it over: the brand, model number and any date code are on the manufacturer’s label underneath.
2. Open the notice for your brand on the CPSC website and compare the model number. Where a notice gives a date code or a range of sale dates, check that too.
3. If it matches, stop using the heater and contact the company through the details in the notice.

If your brand is not in the table, that does not mean it has never been recalled. Our guide to checking whether a product has been recalled shows how to search the full database by brand.

What claiming the refund involves

Several of these notices ask for proof that the heater has been put beyond use before the company pays. Govee and Merkury ask owners to cut the power cord and send a photograph; Vornado asks for photographs and proof of destruction. Do not throw the heater away until you have taken the photographs the notice asks for, including the label. Our guide to how recall refunds work covers what to do if a company is slow or refuses.

Using any space heater safely

A recall deals with a defect. Most heater fires involve how the heater is used. The CPSC estimates that portable heaters were involved in an average of 1,600 fires a year from 2020 to 2022, with about 70 deaths and 150 injuries a year. Its advice:

• Keep the heater at least three feet from curtains, furniture, bedding and anything else that can burn.
• Plug it directly into a wall outlet, never into an extension cord or power strip.
• Stand it on a hard, level, non-flammable surface, not on a rug or carpet.
• Turn it off when you go to sleep or leave the room.
• Do not use a heater with a frayed cord or a bent plug, and stop if the plug, cord or outlet feels hot.

If you are buying a heater now

• Search the exact model number on the CPSC site before you buy, especially second-hand, from a clearance shelf or from a marketplace seller.
• Look for a mark from a nationally recognized testing laboratory. The CPSC notes that older heaters may not meet newer safety standards.
• Register the heater with the manufacturer so you are contacted directly if it is recalled.
• Read recent critical reviews for mentions of melting, burning smells or scorch marks. Our guide to reading negative reviews explains how to tell a pattern from a one-off.

How we researched this

This summary is based on the CPSC’s published recall notices and winter-safety guidance. We did not test any heater. We name a brand only where a CPSC notice does, and a recall of one model says nothing about a company’s other products.