Stay safe and prevent appliance-related injuries

July 26th, 2012

Appliance Talk

Appliances are more dangerous than you might expect.  If you’re not careful, they can become accidents waiting to happen.

We want to keep our customers alive and healthy, so here are a few ways you can avoid being injured by the appliances in your home:

Toasters

A toaster is normally pretty innocuous, but it can be a potential fire or electrocution risk if you’re not careful.

Keep your toaster clear of combustible materials such as curtains, regularly empty the crumb tray, and keep its cords neatly out of the way – a model with the “cord storage” feature is handy that way.  If you feel the need to do some amateur appliance repair, be sure to unplug the toaster before you start probing it with a fork.

In fact, your safest bet is to unplug the toaster whenever you’re not using it in case of live wires, unless you plan to have toast all through the day.

Blenders

Injuries from blenders tend to occur when people accidentally power them on while their fingers are down near the blades.  To prevent this, unplug your blender while you’re loading it – in fact, unplug it whenever it’s not in use.

For additional safety, some blenders (such as this blender/juicer from Breville) integrate safety locking arms that won’t allow the machine to start until everything properly assembled and sealed.

Dishwashers

Tales of people slipping on wet floors and landing atop knives that have been stacked upright in the open dishwasher are pretty horrifying.

Fortunately, many dishwashers include anti-flood systems to keep water from getting all over your kitchen floor.  Though you may want to lay your knives down flat in the top basket, just to be sure…

Clothes dryers

Awfully, most accidents involving clothes dryers happen to children.  Kids climbing inside a dryer can lead to suffocation or worse.

Make sure that your laundry appliances include child locks – these should keep your kids out of danger, and also prevent curious hands from messing with the settings of your laundry cycle.

Fans

Thousands of people are injured each year when their fingers or other body parts get trapped in the whirling blades of a fan.

Okay, fair enough.  That’s unfortunate, but undertandable.

But according to Yahoo, approximately 20 people a year injure their genitals on fans in the US.

A shame they weren’t using a bladeless Dyson Air Multiplier.

Fridges

Fridge power cords can lead to electrical fires if the fridge is poorly set up, due to heat from the back of the fridge wearing through the protective insulation around the wires.  This can be prevented by having your fridge properly installed, for example by an expert from our own Handy Crew.

There are terrifying stories of fridges falling down on top of children who try to climb up to reach the top shelf.  Opt for an integrated or built-in fridge if your little tykes are of a curious and exploratory mindset.

Clothes irons

You know all those old sitcoms where the scatterbrained protagonist wonders aloud “Did I leave the iron on?”  They weren’t being hilariously neurotic, but sensible, as unattended clothes irons can very easily cause house fires.

You can further minimise your fire risk with an iron that includes an auto shut-off feature, which automatically switches the iron off after ten minutes sitting idle in the upright position.  Irons with this feature are available from Panasonic, Tefal and Morphy Richards.

And of course, irons get pretty hot while in use, making it very easy to accidentally burn yourself or others.  Use an iron with a temperature light that will alert you to when it’s hot, and keep the cord tidy to prevent accidental trips – an ironing centre in the home can be handy here.

Cooktops

As kitchen cooktops are an instant source of heat and flame, they’re a fairly obvious fire hazard.  Gas cooktops can be especially dangerous if the gas is accidentally left on.

Selected gas cooktops from Appliances Online include a Flame Failure feature, which automatically shuts off the gas if thet flame goes out, meaning you won’t end up with a roomful of gas that could suffocate you or catch on fire.

One of the safer cooktop options in the kitchen is an induction cooktop, which uses electromagnets rather than heat to cook your food, minimising the risk of accidental burns.

Heaters

Certain types of heater are safer than others.  With this in mind, guides to keeping warm while remaining safe have been released by both the ACCC and NSW Fair Trading.  Read and take notes!

 Stay safe, everyone!