Parents and carers are being urged to take extra vigilance around hot water in the home during winter as hot water in baths and showers continue to cause serious injuries to children around Australia.
Issuing the call for carefulness, State Building Surveyor at the Victorian Building Authority, Andrew Cialini said many household scalds occurred in the bathroom where the water temperature from taps and showers was high, and people couldn’t react quickly enough to avoid injury.
“Victoria’s plumbing laws require a maximum temperature of 50°C at the outlets of each shower head or tap, which is hot enough for a shower, but not hot enough to cause scalding.” Mr Cialini said.
“Children can still receive scalds from temperatures below 50°C so it’s important to make sure that you take steps to stop little ones from accidently turning on the wrong tap and burning themselves,” he said.
“The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne recommends running hot and cold water together to get an appropriate bathing temperature for your child, for children the recommended maximum bathing temperature is 37-38°C and for newborns it is 36°C.”
Mr Cialini encouraged consumers to make sure the hot water delivered to their bath or shower was a maximum of 50°C and to contact a licensed or registered plumber about regulating the temperature.
He said older hot water systems installed before 5 August 1998 were likely to deliver water above 50°C that could cause scalds, but licensed or registered plumbers had various ways of reducing the temperature of water outlets.
“Hiring a licensed or registered plumber to install a tempering valve if one isn’t fitted is an easy and quick way to reduce the hot water temperature in the bathroom,” Mr Cialini said.
Further information on how to reduce the risk of hot water burns in the bathroom can be accessed at this PS News link.
