Fakir home appliances

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Fakir Hausgeräte GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1933
Seat Vaihingen an der Enz , Germany
management Holger Terstiege
Branch domestic appliances
Website www.fakir.de

The Fakir Hausgeräte GmbH is a manufacturer of home appliances, headquartered in the Baden-Württemberg city of Vaihingen .

Company history

The company was founded in 1933 by Wilhelm Kicherer in Mühlacker . The company name Fakir was chosen as an apronym from the two words " Family Kicherer ". The company's initial aim was to produce machines and devices for cleaning floors. In the 1950s, electrical heaters for the household sector were included in the production program. In 1978 a new, large factory site was acquired in Vaihingen an der Enz , where production is currently taking place.

Products

The company sells its devices nationwide in specialist shops and has 60 agencies worldwide. Fakir currently offers products from the areas of floor cleaning and floor care devices, heating devices, ventilation / air conditioning devices, steam cleaning / ironing and small kitchen appliances.

Fire disaster in Kaprun

In the fire disaster on the Kaprun 2 glacier lift on November 11, 2000, with 155 fatalities, a manipulated, negligently installed domestic fan heater from the Fakir Hobby TLB model range (production discontinued in 1996) triggered the fire in the Kitzsteingam train set going to the mountain station . The device was intended by Fakir exclusively for use in the household - and according to the operating instructions expressly not designed for use in vehicles. As a result, it was not allowed to be built into or operated in the glacier lift. Nevertheless, it was permanently installed by an Austrian external company in 1994 in the cavity under the control panel of the driver's cab on the valley side. For this, however, the device had to be structurally changed, which meant that the VDE and GS type approval marks became void . The housing was first unscrewed and both rotary switches on the device were modified so that they could still be used after installation. Finally, the housing was screwed back together from behind through a metal sheet and the cavity was closed or sealed with wooden elements and glass wool. In addition, the power cable was firmly connected to a kind of conductor rail, so that the fan heater switched on automatically at every station stop, as the train set itself was not connected to the mains.

The suction effect of the fakir heater carried dirt particles and fibers into the device, the components of which were also exposed to constant temperature differences and vibrations over the years. On the morning of November 11, 2000, the inevitable happened: through leaky hydraulic measuring lines on the control panel of the funicular, combustible hydraulic oil dripped onto the heating coil of the device and ignited the plastic housing, the control panel and finally the entire train set with a fatal outcome. After the glacier cable car operator Fakir sued for damages in January 2004 (originally at the Salzburg public prosecutor , who passed the case on to the Heilbronn public prosecutor ) , the company founded the Fakir Hausgeräte GmbH in 2005 in order to “ to transfer the operative business with exclusion of liability from the KG ”. The company Fakir was completely exonerated in 2007 by the Heilbronn public prosecutor and the proceedings were discontinued. Due to the severe damage to its reputation, Fakir ran into economic difficulties and the company was sold to Turkish investors as a result.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See, inter alia, Karin Berkemann: Architecture in the everyday test: Der Fakir Hobby TE, in: moderneREGIONAL October 2016 ( http://www.moderne-regional.de/der-fakir-hobby/ , on the occasion of the commissioned by Straße der Moderne in Cooperation with the Cathedral Museum in Mainz by Karin Berkemann curated exhibition "Forever. Modern Churches in the Diocese of Mainz", photos: Marcel Schawe).
  2. ^ Acquittal for the fan heater , sueddeutsche.de, May 17, 2010
  3. ^ Investigations against Fakir after the Kaprun judgment , oberpfalznetz.de, February 24, 2004
  4. ^ Crime lesson in the canteen: Fakir-Krisenmanagement , vkz.de, October 2008
  5. ↑ Investigations against those responsible for the fan heater manufacturer in connection with the glacier railway accident discontinued , baden-wuerttemberg.de, September 25, 2007 ( Memento from April 12, 2013 in the archive.today web archive )
  6. ^ Christian Fürst: Kaprun tragedy: How Austrians passed the blame on to Germans. In: welt.de . June 24, 2014, accessed October 7, 2018 .