Galanz Recalls 121,680 Retro Refrigerators After 34 Fires and One Death
Galanz Americas is recalling about 121,680 retro-style refrigerators sold at Home Depot and on Amazon.com. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the internal electrical components can short circuit and ignite, and that it is aware of 34 fires involving these refrigerators — one of which killed someone. Unplug the unit and stop using it. The repair is free and the technician comes to you.
The recall was announced on July 30, 2026 (CPSC recall number 26649). CPSC's stated hazard is "risk of serious injury or death from fire and burn hazards." On the fatality, CPSC attributes the finding to the local fire department report.
Which refrigerators are covered
Five model numbers, and only units with date codes from December 2018 through December 2020:
- BCD-215V-62H
- GLR76TRDER
- GLR76TBKER
- GLR76TBEER
- GLR76TWEER
The model number and the date code — in YYYYMM format — are printed together on a white label in the upper left-hand corner on the back of the unit. That label is the only thing that settles it. The refrigerators were sold from January 2019 through September 2022, so a fridge you bought new in 2022 can still carry a 2020 date code; your purchase date does not clear you.
The recalled units are the 7.6 cu. ft. retro top-freezer design, about 58 inches high, 24 inches deep and 21 inches wide, sold in black, blue, red and white, with left- or right-hand opening doors, three adjustable glass shelves and one drawer. The top freezer has its own door and "Galanz" printed on the front. They sold for between $330 and $520.
They were made by Zhongshan Galanz in China and imported by Galanz Americas Limited Company of New Jersey and by Home Depot of Georgia.
What to do
- Unplug it and stop using it now — CPSC's instruction is to keep it out of service until it is repaired, not to keep running it while you wait for an appointment.
- Book the free in-home repair. Galanz Americas is on 888-462-0579, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. The recall's own registration site is
GalanzRetroFridgeRecall.expertinquiry.com, and the notice is linked under "PRODUCT RECALLS" at galanz.com/us. - Do not pay anyone for this. CPSC's remedy is a free in-home repair by a qualified technician. If you have a home warranty, this is not the claim to spend a service-call fee on — the recall repair costs you nothing.
Why we are running this
Our own refrigerator not cooling guide sends readers into a diagnostic tree: check the coils, the door gasket, the evaporator fan, then think about the compressor. That advice is right for almost every warm fridge, and wrong for these five model numbers. If your refrigerator is on the list above, the tree stops at step zero — the failure mode in question is an electrical fault that can ignite, and the correct move is to pull the plug and call the recall line, not to open the back and start cleaning.
We have to flag one line in that guide directly, because it points the wrong way here. Asked whether to unplug a fridge that isn't cooling, it answers that if the unit is partially cooling you should leave it running with the doors closed until repair — food holds longer, and a few more days of running does no extra harm. That is sound general advice and bad advice for these five model numbers. CPSC's instruction is to unplug and stop using the refrigerator immediately, whether or not it is still cooling. If your model and date code are on the list above, the recall notice wins; we will correct the guide separately rather than change it quietly underneath this article.
The same goes for the arithmetic in our appliance lifespan guide, which puts the average refrigerator at 13 years. By that number a unit built in 2019 or 2020 is around the halfway mark and comfortably worth repairing — and it is, but not on your dime and not by a tech you found yourself.
One more thing worth saying plainly: the price band here, $330 to $520, is the cheap end of the market. These are the fridges that end up in garages, basements, dorm rooms, rentals and second kitchens, plugged in and forgotten, sometimes bought used with no record of the recall. If you have put one somewhere you don't look at often, go look at the label on the back.
We do not rate Galanz. Our comparison covers home-warranty providers, parts sellers, a repair marketplace and one manufacturer-direct retailer — Galanz is not among them, so no score of ours is affected by this recall. This one is on the site because 34 fires and a death in a $400 refrigerator is the kind of thing our readers own without knowing it.