A Small Recall With an Unusual Catch: The Heater Can Stay Live Even When the Unit Is Off
Credit: Homeowner.ca
On June 25, 2026, Health Canada — together with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and distributor Daikin Comfort Technologies — recalled four models of Amana through-the-wall air conditioners and heat pumps over a burn and fire hazard. The unit count is small. Only 53 of the affected units were sold in Canada, against roughly 7,030 in the United States. The hazard is not small, and that is the reason this notice deserves more attention than its size would suggest.
Here is the part most owners miss. A through-the-wall unit does not read like an appliance. It reads like part of the wall. It sits flush in a sleeve in a condo, a sunroom, an addition, or a rental suite, and the people living with it rarely think of it as something that gets recalled. This recall adds a second twist on top of that blind spot: the danger does not stop when you switch the unit off.
If you have a built-in Amana wall unit that went in sometime in the last year or so, this is the two-minute check that tells you whether you are affected — and the exact steps to get your money back without forfeiting it.
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The recall covers four Amana through-the-wall models: two air conditioners, PBE093J35AA and PBE123J35AA, and two heat pumps, PBH093J35AA and PBH113J35AA. All four were sold in Canada between April and December 2025. The distributor is Daikin Comfort Technologies of Houston, Texas, and the manufacturer is Amber Enterprises India Ltd. of Punjab, India.
Most recall hazards are tied to a product doing its job — overheating while running, failing under load. This one is different. The product does not meet the electrical requirements of the applicable UL standard, and a ground fault in the electric heater can energize the heating element any time the unit is plugged in, regardless of mode, according to Health Canada. Read that again: regardless of mode. Turning the unit off does not remove the risk. Unplugging it does.
So far the reported incidents are limited. As of March 27, 2026, the company reported no incidents or injuries in Canada and a single U.S. report of plastic melting on a unit, with no injuries. Limited history is not the same as low stakes — a live heating element behind a wall panel is exactly the kind of fault a recall is meant to catch early. It is the same energized-when-off pattern that has driven other Canadian heating and cooling recalls, including a recent Merkury Innovations heating and cooling fan recall tied to fire reports.
You do not have to guess from the way the unit looks. The model number is the test. Affected units are white, usually have "Amana" printed on the control cover, and carry the model number on a white sticker on the front edge of the base pan; the model begins with "PB," and the serial number sits under the barcode beneath it, per the Health Canada recall notice. If your model number matches one of the four below, your unit is part of the recall. If it does not, it is not affected — even if it looks identical.
Two of the four are heat pumps — a category that has become far more common in Canadian homes, which means more households now have one of these units quietly handling both heating and cooling. If you are weighing one for your own home, our guide to switching to a heat pump in Canada covers the broader picture, but for now the only number that matters is the one on that base-pan sticker.
If your model matches, treat it as a stop-use situation. The official instruction is straightforward: immediately stop using the unit, unplug it, and contact Daikin Comfort Technologies for next steps. Unplugging is the operative word — switching it off leaves the fault path live.
From there, the remedy is a full refund, and the process has one detail that is easy to get wrong. Daikin will instruct you to cut the unit's power cord and submit a photo of the cut cord positioned in front of the unit's serial plate. That photo is your proof of eligibility. Cut the cord too early, lose the serial plate, or dispose of the unit first, and you can complicate or forfeit the refund.
To reach the company:
Do not throw the unit out, and do not give it away or pass it to a tenant or buyer. Health Canada's guidance on recalled products tells consumers not to discard a recalled item without instructions or hand it to someone else, as set out in its consumer recall guidance. Under the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, a recalled product cannot be redistributed, sold, or even given away. Following the cut-cord process is what preserves both your refund and your eligibility.
The mechanics here echo other recent fire-hazard recalls that ended in a full refund rather than a repair, such as the Vornado SRTH tower heater recall. The pattern is consistent: document the unit, follow the manufacturer's steps, get your money back.
A recall of 53 units will not lead a national newscast. That is precisely the problem. Coverage scales with volume, and a built-in wall unit installed in a handful of Canadian homes is the kind of story that slips past the people who actually own one. The math that makes this a minor headline is the same math that makes it easy to miss.
The form factor compounds it. Amana markets this family as a through-the-wall, flush-mount line built into an accessory wall sleeve — equipment you live in front of, not equipment you think of as a removable appliance. Landlords, condo owners, and recent movers are the most exposed here, because the person who installed the unit is often not the person living with it today. A unit recalled this month does not announce itself. It looks exactly like it did last summer. Recalls that fly under the radar are common — a recent Andersen casement window recall over a fall hazard is another that affected owners could easily never hear about.
The reliable fix for missed recalls is not vigilance — it is subscription. Health Canada runs a free, public recall mailing list that lets you choose the product categories you care about and emails you directly when something is flagged. There is one step people skip: you have to click the confirmation link in the activation email, or the subscription never turns on, according to Health Canada's recall subscription page.
When you buy or install a new appliance, register it with the manufacturer and subscribe to Health Canada's alerts in the same sitting. It is the difference between hearing about a recall from an official notice and never hearing about it at all — the same channel that surfaces recalls like the SNOOZ Breez bedroom fan recall over overheating and fire reports.
For this recall, the action is narrow and clear. Check the base-pan sticker. If the model starts with "PB" and matches one of the four listed, unplug the unit, call Daikin, and follow the cut-cord refund process to the letter. Fifty-three units is a small number. If one of them is in your wall, it is the only number that counts.
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About the Author
Ryan is the founder of Homeowner.ca and a proud Canadian homeowner based in Guelph, Ontario. Over his 25-year career in digital publishing, he has focused on transforming complex information into clear, practical guidance that helps people make confident, well-informed decisions.
