"Ron Hubbard" writes:

"Sam Goldwasser" wrote in message
...
"Ron Hubbard" writes:

My mother has a 1500 watt oil-filled heater that has been working
pretty well for a couple of years until first one power switch
disappeared, then sometime later the second switch disappeared.

There was no bang, no shorting, no arcing, no nothing to indicate
what happened, but both rocker switches has disappeared from out
of
their sockets and not even pieces of them could be found. Does
anybody
know what happened or ever hear of such a thing happening before?

Let me guess.... It is a DeLongi(sp?). Not sure if this is the
same
problem but we picked one up at a garage sale a few years ago with a
bad switch (not missing, just bad). After contacting the mfg., they
told us that for $5, there was an upgrade which essentially replaced
the entire control panel.

In any case, switches don't evaporate so either someone is pulling
your
leg or the parts are somewhere nearby. It's possible the switch
overheated
and the front section popped out.

It was a Lakewood, for what it's worth. After a lot of looking I found
the dead and burnt carcass of one switch; the other is still MIA There
was no arcing, no apparent over-heating, nothing to suggest there was
a problem until I went to turn the heat down and one switch was gone.
Ditto with the second one. Do you have any idea why a pair of
illuminated rocker switches would burn up like that? Besides being
expensive they are also big and heavy, and as such I don't want to
buy another heater and have the same thing happen.

It's possible the switches were just poorly designed and failed
mechannically. No weay to know from here. Sure, could have been
overheating or a shorted element but maybe just bad switches.

You could replace the switches easily enough.

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