Gifts go off with bang

The remains of a faulty lamp. Photo / Supplied

It was not so much an eruption as an explosion of lava.

Some Christmas shoppers had a nasty surprise after the 70s-style lava lamps they bought from a New Zealand website exploded.

The customers bought $19.99 lava lamps from internet company 1-day.co.nz - the same site that sold a remote-controlled plane which investigators believe sparked a post-Christmas house fire.

Now, one woman says a 1-day lava lamp, given to her son for Christmas by his girlfriend, has exploded.

"He'd plugged it in and after an hour they heard a big explosion. Glass, wax, etc all up the walls, on their bed and all over the carpet. Luckily no one was hurt," she said.

"It's so bloody dangerous. Some people use them as night lights in their kids' rooms."

Another 1-day customer said he had bought two lamps as Christmas presents.

"My sister plugged her one in and after an hour or so it exploded, made a hell of a mess with wax up the wall and all over the carpet."

"I was horrified," he said. "I won't be using our one."

Gisborne woman Amanda Morris-Baker said she bought a lava lamp from 1-day.co.nz. "I just have a murky looking one," she said. "After hearing of the exploded lava lamps we have not used it since, and will probably never turn it on."

A spokesman for 1-day.co.nz, Neil Gibb, confirmed the company had received up to 60 complaints about the lava lamps in the past week.

"We sold in excess of 1000 lamps and have had 50 to 60 people with some issues. [An] explosion is a more dramatic thing. What we have found is leaking."

It was the second shipment from China and no problems had been reported before, he added.

"What we think might have happened is a pallet of the lamps might have been dropped. That might have caused hairline fractures in the lamps and then as people heated them up the weakened glass starts to leak."

1-day.co.nz made headlines last year for selling allegedly fake Ab-Circle Pro machines. That case is currently before the High Court in Hamilton.

It also sold a remote-controlled toy plane that investigators believe caused a house fire last month, after it was given to a West Auckland teenager for Christmas.

The fire burned the walls of 17-year-old Dylan Tooth's Glen Eden bedroom. He was not in the room at the time.

Have you had any problems? Email us: joanne.carroll@hos.co.nz