Ahead of this year’s National Burn Awareness Day, Bristan is encouraging installers to play an active role in promoting the importance of hot water safety measures in order to help raise standards for all.
Now in its second year, National Burn Awareness Day, which will be held on 21st 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 critical to this. Each year, around 20 people die and almost 600 are seriously injured from scalds caused by hot water – three quarters of whom are children. In the main, these incidents involve baths, but hand washing and showering facilities pose a very real hazard too.
The sad reality, however, is that the majority of these tragic 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, comments: “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, of course, is 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.”
Bristan is the UK’s number one shower and taps company. For further information, please visit www.bristan.com.
