Bathroom product recalls: shower doors, seats, toilets and water heaters in the federal record

How a shower door, a valve, a seat, a toilet or a water heater is built is covered across this knowledge base; this page covers how they have failed badly enough to be recalled. It counts the Consumer Product Safety Commission's recalls in ten bathroom and water-heating categories from January 2000 to September 2026, sets out what went wrong in each, and explains the federal safety glass standard every shower and tub door must meet.

Last updated September 2026 · Recalls are the Consumer Product Safety Commission's, counted from its database and read at cpsc.gov; the glass standard is 16 CFR Part 1201, each read September 24, 2026 · No prices on this page; the Estimate Builder carries those · Part of the knowledge base

What a recall is, and who issues it

A recall of a household product in the United States is announced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission with the company that made or sold it. Each notice names the product, usually by model number, serial range or date code, the hazard, the number of units sold, the incidents and injuries reported to the company or the Commission, and the remedy, such as a repair, a refund or a replacement. When a seller will not agree to an acceptable recall, the Commission can issue a public warning instead, and warnings are not in its recall database. Shower chairs, transfer benches and commodes sold as medical devices are a different case: federal law excludes medical devices from the Commission's reach, and they are recalled through the Food and Drug Administration.

The counts on this page come from the Commission's own recall database, searched through its public web service with hundreds of keyword queries for January 1, 2000 through September 24, 2026, with every included title checked by hand and every included recall read again on its page at cpsc.gov. Infant bath seats, bath toys, boilers on their own (including a combination boiler the Commission recalled as a boiler in August 2025), pool and spa heaters and whole-house fans were left out; a few water heater recalls also covered boilers or combination units, and are counted whole. That makes this a careful count, not an official one; no Commission total for these categories, and no count by state, was found.

The record at a glance, 2000 to September 2026

Units are units sold, as each notice states them, not units still in use, and a recall counts reports of the failure, not how often the product fails. Across all 55 recalls, two deaths were reported, both from carbon monoxide, both in Manitoba, Canada, under a 2001 recall of about 320 gas water heaters sold in the United States. Five of the 55 were Recall Alerts, a form the Commission allows when the company can reach nearly all of its buyers directly.

Water heaters: fire and carbon monoxide

Water heaters and their controls are the most recalled item in the set, 26 of the 55 recalls. By the main hazard each notice named, 14 were fire or explosion and 10 carbon monoxide; the other two were a burn and a tank rupture. Most were gas-fired heaters, including tankless units, and at least four recalls covered parts rather than whole heaters: temperature controls, a gas control valve, pressure relief valves and wiring junction boxes. The causes the notices describe include burners making too much carbon monoxide, vents and controls that fail, and flammable vapors reaching the burner. How a Central Ohio water heater is sized, and what the code asks of its relief valve and pan, is on the page on hot water for a Central Ohio shower.

Pressure-assisted toilets

The largest recalls by far are of pressure-assisted flushing systems, the sealed vessel inside some toilet tanks that uses the water supply's pressure to push the flush. The Commission said the vessel could burst at or near its seam, lifting the tank lid and shattering the tank. Four Flushmate recalls from 2012 to 2018 covered about 4.5 million units sold in the United States, about 71 percent of all the units on this page, with 1,755 reports of bursting and 38 injury reports. The expansions covered different manufacturing windows, so the units add up rather than repeat. What else to know about a toilet in a remodel is on the page on toilets in a bathroom remodel.

Shower seats, stools, benches and grab bars

Every recall of a shower seat, stool or bench in the set was for a fall hazard, and two of the six were wall-mounted seats whose hardware could corrode. Both grab bar recalls came after 2020. The larger, in September 2024, covered about 174,500 clamp-on tub safety bars whose grip pads could come loose on tubs with tapered walls. Medical shower chairs and commodes do not appear here; the Food and Drug Administration's device recall records include shower chairs, bath lifts and shower seats recalled for weight capacity, casters, backrests and brackets, among them 21,168 shower chairs from a maker in Elyria, Ohio, in 2012. How a bar and a seat are anchored in a wall is on the page on grab bars and shower seats.

Glass shower doors, and the federal glass standard

Glass shower doors were recalled four times in the set. Only the two smallest, about 10 and about 100 doors, named glass that could shatter; the two larger were hinges that could fail and let a door fall.

All glass in a shower or tub door or enclosure is held to the federal safety glazing standard, 16 CFR Part 1201, at its heavier impact level. The standard does not require every maker to run the test itself, but makers must certify that the glass meets it, and fabricators count as makers. Tempered glass, why it cannot be cut or drilled after it is made, and the kinds of shower door are on the page on shower doors and glass; Ohio's own rules for glass near a tub or shower are on the page on windows and glass by era.

Scald protection and faucets

Two scald-prevention devices were recalled: about 105,000 shower and tub valve cartridges in October 2006 whose hot-water limit could disengage, sold to plumbers in Indiana and Ohio from October 2005 and nationwide from March 2006, and about 26,000 anti-scald flow-reducing devices in July 2015. The Ohio Plumbing Code requires a shower valve to be pressure-balancing, thermostatic or a combination, with a limit on its hottest setting, as the page on shower valves and fittings explains.

Lead in faucets is a 2025 story, and most of it is outside the recall database. In May 2025 three kitchen faucet brands sold online were recalled for lead, about 103,000 units in all, and four bathroom faucet brands sold online received Commission warnings instead, each saying the firm had not agreed to an acceptable recall. The Commission's advice on faucets is to look for ones that comply with NSF/ANSI Standard 61 and NSF/ANSI 372, and it notes that boiling water does not remove lead. Lead in Central Ohio's water systems is on the page on lead service lines and lead at the tap.

Tubs, fans and the rest

The four tub recalls were an air whirlpool bath for fire in 2002, whirlpool tubs for hair entrapment at the drain in 2009, acrylic tubs whose built-in grab bars could loosen and break in 2012, from a maker in Perrysville, Ohio, and walk-in tubs with a heated seat that could burn in 2015. The one bathroom exhaust fan recall was about 68,000 fans with a heater and light, for fire, in 2012. Two electric showerheads that heat the water in the head itself were recalled in 2002 and 2003 for shock; both notices name Puerto Rico as where they were sold. What a bath fan should move, and where it vents, is on the page on the bathroom exhaust fan.

How to check a product

Each recall notice at cpsc.gov describes the product it covers, usually by model number, serial range or date code, and names the remedy and how to get it. The Commission's warnings about products whose sellers would not recall them are posted separately on the same site. A recall count is a count of notices, not a failure rate, and none of these figures is specific to Central Ohio.

Sources

Every figure, date and quotation on this page comes from one of these documents, read on the date given. Where two of them disagree, the page says so.

• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Recalls web service, searched January 1, 2000 through September 24, 2026, with the Recalls Retrieval Web Services Programmers Guide, version 1.3; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the 55 recall notices counted here at cpsc.gov/Recalls, each read September 24, 2026; for example the October 2018 flushing system recall and the September 2024 tub safety bar recall.
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, news release on faucets and lead, May 15, 2025, and Lead in Water Faucets; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Product Safety Planning, Reporting, and Recall Handbook, 2025; read September 24, 2026.
• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 16 CFR Part 1201, Safety Standard for Architectural Glazing Materials, current to September 22, 2026; read September 24, 2026.
• Federal Register, Safety Standard for Architectural Glazing Materials, final rule, 81 FR 15427, March 23, 2016; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Code, 15 U.S.C. 2052(a)(5), the definition of a consumer product; read September 24, 2026.
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration, openFDA device recall and enforcement records, searched for shower chairs, bath seats, bath lifts, commodes and grab bars; read September 24, 2026.

Common questions