Vornado Air is recalling about 255,000 SRTH small room tower heaters after receiving reports of eight fires, according to the recall notice posted by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on June 4, 2026. The heaters were sold at Kohl’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, ACE Hardware, Vornado.com and Amazon for between $40 and $50 from August 2013 through May 2026.
What’s Actually Wrong With It
The recalled unit is a compact tower-style space heater, about 12.5 inches tall and 6 inches in diameter, sold in black and white under the model designation “TYPE SRTH.” CPSC’s notice says the heater’s plastic enclosure can overheat and melt, posing a fire hazard. Beyond the eight confirmed fires, Vornado has logged 32 total reports of overheating and one incident involving smoke inhalation, according to the commission’s filing. No further injury details were disclosed in the public notice.
CPSC’s recall database and Vornado’s own recall page both list the same remedy: stop using the heater immediately, and contact Vornado at 844-205-7978 (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central, Monday through Friday) for instructions on submitting photos of the unit and proof of destruction in exchange for a full refund. Vornado is not offering a repair option; the company wants these units taken out of circulation entirely, not fixed and returned to use.
Why the Timing Matters
The recall landed in early June, but small space heaters like this one spend most of the warmer months boxed up in a closet, basement or garage. That means a meaningful share of the roughly quarter-million affected units are only now getting pulled back out as temperatures drop heading into October and November. A recall notice seen in June, when nobody’s running a heater, is easy to forget by the time cold weather actually arrives and the same box gets opened without a second thought.
That gap between recall date and actual use is exactly the window CPSC recall notices are designed to close, and it’s worth checking your own storage bins before this fall’s first cold snap rather than after you’ve already plugged one in overnight. The National Fire Protection Association notes that home heating fires peak in December, January and February, meaning the busiest months for this exact heater are still ahead once fall arrives, not behind it.
Where These Heaters Came From
The recalled units were manufactured in China and imported by Vornado Air, LLC, based in Andover, Kansas, according to CPSC’s filing. The commission’s notice attributes the overheating specifically to fan displacement inside the unit: the internal fan can shift out of position during normal use, restricting airflow around the heating element until the surrounding plastic housing gets hot enough to deform and, in the more severe cases, ignite. That’s a mechanical failure rather than a simple wiring defect, which is part of why Vornado is asking for full destruction and proof of it rather than offering a repair kit. There’s no simple fix that reliably keeps the fan in place across every unit already in homes.
How to Check If You Have One
Look for the model designation “SRTH” printed on the underside or rear panel of any small black-or-white tower heater in your home, particularly one purchased between 2013 and this spring from one of the listed retailers. If the model matches, unplug it and don’t use it again, even for a single evening, while you contact Vornado for the refund process.
Broader context matters here too. CPSC’s electric heater recall history shows overheating and melting enclosures are a recurring failure mode across multiple heater brands and years, not a one-off defect specific to this model. That page lists dozens of separate heater recalls going back years, spanning multiple manufacturers, which is worth remembering the next time you’re shopping for a replacement: a recall history on this category isn’t a red flag unique to Vornado, it’s close to the norm for portable electric heat. If you own any portable space heater more than a few years old, it’s worth a quick model-number search on CPSC’s site before the season’s first use, a habit that costs five minutes and catches exactly the kind of hazard that turns into a house fire instead of a returned appliance. With the coldest months of the year still weeks away for most of the country, there’s no urgency-driven reason to plug in an unchecked heater tonight rather than confirming the model number first.
