Safer Electrical Installations Handbook Released
Safer Electrical Installations Handbook Released
Improving the safety of our children, our elderly parents and people with disabilities should be of paramount concern to society. Yet every year people in these groups are hurt, injured and sometimes killed, due to electrical accidents. A new handbook being published by Standards New Zealand Safer Electrical Installations for Children, Elderly and People with Disabilities has been released. It provides expert guidance on how to avoid these accidents through safer electrical installations, as well as how to improve people’s life-styles through more efficient electrical facilities.
The home is one of the few environments where we like to think we have control and where we and those we care about, are out of harm’s way. Ironically, it is in the home where a large number of accidents occur.
Shelly Hanifan, the director of Safekids, the child injury prevention service of Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland, reports that the three fatal electrical accidents involving children which occurred last year, all took place in the home. "Children are particularly vulnerable to electrical accidents because electricity cannot be seen and the dangers that exist are not obvious", she says . "A standard power point is rated for an electrical current of 10 amps but a current of as little as one tenth of an amp can cause the heart to go into spasm. There is plenty of electricity in a normal socket in a normal home to kill a child. Safekids would like to see safety switch protection on all electrical outlets - so that children are protected if they do get into difficulties with power".
Scalding is another major issue for children - either from tap water set at too high a temperature, or from children pulling cords attached to hot water jugs and kettles. Children’s skin burns almost twice as quickly as adults do. The handbook recommends that hot water in old people’s homes, early childhood centres and schools should be at a maximum temperature of 45 ºC, rather than the 65 ºC commonly set in homes.
Most electrical accidents to children occur before the age of five, so Safekids would like to see the handbook distributed to anyone concerned with the care of very young children, including parents.
Pat Cunniffe from the New Zealand Council of Elders takes that a step further and says that anybody who has a personal interest in being safe at home should be interested in the handbook. "Most people prefer to stay in their own homes for as long as possible, and some people are literally being scared out of their homes", she says. While the number of things we can do to prevent threats from the outside, such as home invasions, is limited, we can reduce the number of accidents occurring within the home.
There are numerous aspects of daily living that present hazards to elderly people, that just doesn’t occur to fully able-bodied people. For example, elderly people need to feel safe in the shower, a handrail and water set at a safe temperature help people feel secure, Cunniffe says.
Another area where many accidents occur is the kitchen. The handbook recommends having an ‘appliance garage’ which keeps larger and heavier appliances in one space, so that they don’t have to be lifted or moved around. Some elderly people are reluctant to use modern technology, Cunniffe says. Certain devices, such as alarm systems, are seen as too complex, and others, such as microwaves, are seen as unsafe. When microwaves first came out, many elderly people refused to use them, even though they present an ideal cooking solution for people living on their own, as many elderly people do. The way to get around this is to have intensive education programmes, which reassure elderly people that they will be able to operate a particular electrical device safely, Cunniffe says. "The message we want to get across, and this handbook is one means to do so, is that it is preferable to preserve people’s independence in the home for as long as possible." Bill Wrightson is a building consultant who also has a disability, and was involved in drafting the standard NZS 4102 Safer housing design, from which this handbook takes many of its principles.
He welcomes the handbook in that it identifies the needs of these particular interest groups for safe electrical installations, but he believes ultimately they must be brought into mainstream design. "If you make the home safer for children, the elderly and people with disabilities, you’re making it safer for everybody." In addition to the handbook for children, elderly and people with disabilities, the Handbook for Electrical Service Technicians is currently under revision and is shortly to be republished.
Source