Homeowners can help protect their children by taking a proactive approach to child-proofing their property. While most parents understand the need to add a gate to their stair areas and to add a child-lock on medicine cabinets, few have the forethought to child-proof their home faucets. This can present a number of dangerous scenarios in the average Canadian home. And so within this post, we’ll examine several techniques for child-proofing home faucets.
Reduce the Heat to the Faucet
Before considering ways to prevent children accessing home faucet areas, it’s important to make sure that, even if they do gain access, they cannot burn their skin. Homeowners can use the temperature dial on their home water heater to reduce the temperature of the water entering through their hot water tap. The hot water temperature should be set no higher than 120 F, as any temperature above this limit can scald the skin.
Use Handle Locks
Handle locks are now one of the leading methods of preventing a child from turning on a faucet. They can be placed around the faucet and locked into place to ensure children cannot turn the hot or cold water on when they’re using the bathroom. One of the great advantages of the latest handle locks is that they’re easy for adults to open. This means they offer a safety barrier to protect children but don’t make it more difficult for adults to enjoy that relaxing warm bath after work.
Hide the Faucet Handle
Another technique parents across Ontario are now using is to simply hide the faucet handle so that their young children don’t know how to turn the faucet on or off. There are a number of products on the marketplace that can help obstruct the child’s view of the handle. But for this solution to work effectively, it’s important that the product remains in place each time the bath or sink is used, to ensure there’s no chance of the child seeing the faucet and becoming curious.
By taking a few simple precautious around the home, parents can minimize the chances of their children drowning or becoming scalded by water from their home faucets. To learn more on the steps to take to childproof your home property, contact our trusted plumbing specialists directly today!
