Safety In Your Home

Your home is your castle – where you feel at ease, comfortable and secure. Home is also where more accidents happen to people than anywhere else. A home renovation provides a great opportunity to improve the safety of your home. If you live in an older home built to earlier codes, chances are that there are a number of things you can do to make your home a safer place to live as building codes and practices have evolved over the years. Not all safety improvements are expensive and time-consuming; but can still make a difference. A renovator can advise you on possible improvements that can be made to your home. Some may already be included in your renovation plans; it may be cost-effective for your renovator to make other improvements at the same time.

• Hardwiring your smoke detectors into your electrical system eliminates the risk of batteries running low or being “temporarily” removed.
• Install a carbon monoxide detector to monitor this colourless and odourless but harmful gas, which is a common by-product of the burning furnaces and fireplaces. You could be at risk if equipment is faulty or not installed, operated, or vented properly. Like a smoke detector, it can be wired directly into your home’s electrical system, or it can be battery-operated or plugged into an electrical outlet.
• GFCI (ground-fault circuit interrupters) outlets protect from electrical shock in damp or wet environments. Install these outlets in the bathroom, kitchen and outdoors where exposed to the elements or near swimming pools or hot tubs.
• Not enough electrical outlets can result in a tangle of wires and extension cords. People can trip, pull lamps over or pull hot appliances off kitchen counters. Adding outlets can be relatively easy, depending on the condition of your home’s electrical.
• Make it easy to move safely outdoors in the dark. Install good lighting outside the entrance door, by stairs, along walkways and at other strategic locations such as your garbage and recycling storage area.
• Check all exit doors and windows to ensure they are easy to get to and open in the event of an emergency for everyone in the home.
• Adding sand to painted exterior stairs and porch floors will give your feet a better grip and prevent falls when wet.
• Older interior stairs may be steep or narrow, with undersized steps; installing a handrail on the wall at the proper height, will give family members something to hold on to.
• To prevent slipping and falling on stairs, consider well-installed runners or apply an abrasive, non-skid strip on each step. Don’t forget about good lighting in the stairwell so you can see clearly.
• Particularly for the little ones in the family, check that railing on stairs inside and out are in good shape, with no loose parts, and proper spacing to prevent children from falling through or getting stuck.
• A grab bar next to the tub or shower is helpful to keep both young and old from sliding and falling. Or, if you are redoing your bathroom and don’t want a grab bar now, reinforce the wall for a future installation.
• Replace bathroom floor covering with non-slip flooring.
• Rapid changes in water pressure and temperature are common in older homes; this is not only uncomfortable, and it can also be hazardous. Pressure-balanced valves for the shower and bathtub prevent scalding in the bathroom by automatically adjusting the flow of hot water, if there is a sudden drop in cold water.