Installers are being encouraged to play an active role in promoting awareness of the importance of hot water safety measures, ahead of this year’s National Burn Awareness Day.
Now in its second year, National Burn Awareness Day, which will be held on 21 October this year, was founded by the Children’s Burns Trust in a bit to help raise awareness of the shocking number of people burned each day, while promoting preventative measures and good first aid.
Adequate hot water safety is core to this. Each year, around 20 people die and almost 600 are seriously injured from scalds caused from hot water, three quarters of which are children. In the main these incidents involve baths, but hand washing and showering facilities pose a very real hazard too.
The majority of these cases could have been easily prevented by the use of a Thermostatic Mixing Valve (TMV), which works by mixing the hot water with the cold supply so that it is delivered at a safe temperature.
Peter Manning, Bristan’s technical liaison manager said: “It is an incredibly sad situation but the reality is that, despite legislation and technologies designed to aid hot water safety, there is still a large number of people in the UK who are scalded by hot water each year.
“We believe the crux of the problem is a lack of awareness. Many people simply do not realise that something as relatively cheap and easy to install as a TMV can help ensure optimum safety at any point where hot water is delivered.
“This is, of course, most pertinent where the very young, elderly or less able are present but should, ideally, be used as a standard preventative measure.”
He adds: “As such, it is very much an education task which, as an industry, we must address.
“As a company we continue to promote the importance of hot water safety and would ask all installers, when quoting for a job or simply out and about talking to customers, to continue to push the hot water safety message.”
