Childproofing New House

By Keep Kids Healthy
June 28, 2009
Most people start thinking about childproofing their house once their child is crawling, walking and becoming a lot more mobile.

However, if you are moving into or building a new house, now could be a good time to start childproofing. Building a ‘safe’ home can help to save you time and money later once you move in and have to start childproofing.

Of course, new homes are generally safer than older homes. You don’t have to worry about lead paint, new appliances likely have more safety features than older ones, including gararge door openers, and ground-fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs) help prevent electrocution.

Still, there are some ‘features’ of newer homes that make them harder to childproof. Among these trends in home building include:

• the use of lever type door handles
• installation of a lot of electric outlets (often 3-4 per room)
• more open designs that make the home seem bigger, but make it more difficult to limit your child’s movement around the house with gates, etc.

If you keep in mind that one of the basics of childproofing is restricting access to parts of your house that aren’t childproof, you can see why these above trends might make it harder to make your home safe.

Door Knobs

If you have a typical round door knob, simple plastic door knob covers can keep your toddler and preschool age children out of rooms that aren’t childproof, restrict unsupervised access to the bathroom, etc., and keep your kids from leaving the house, but it is still easy for older kids and adults to open the doors.

Unfortunately, these types of door knob covers can’t be used with lever type door handles. Instead, you have to install an overhead door latch, which are more expensive and difficult to install than door knob covers and would also keep your older kids or shorter family members from opening the door if they can’t reach the top of the door to move the latch.

If you are building a new home, unless you don’t have younger kids, aren’t planning to have children, and won’t be having younger children visit, you might ask to have standard round door knobs installed. If the house is already built, ask to have the knobs replaced or ask to be compensated for changing them yourself.

 

Electric Outlets

With the regular use of ground-fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs), your child is safer and less likely to get electrocuted in a new home.

And the trend to have more electric outlets in each room makes it less likely that you will have electric and appliance cords going all over the room or that outlets will be overloaded.

So maybe it is a good idea to have a lot of outlets in a room. Just remember to place outlet covers on all of the electric outlets that aren’t in use.

 

Safety Gates

Fortunately, even in a home with a very open design, you can usually limit your child’s access to stairs and rooms that aren’t childproof with the use of safety gates and safety gate extensions.
Hot Water Heater

Make sure that you understand how to set your hot water heater to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius) to prevent scalding burns. This will help to reduce the approximately 3,800 injuries and 34 deaths that occur in the home each year due to scalding from excessively hot tap water.

 

Window Blind Loops

Children can become strangled in window blind cord loops, so make sure that if you are installing window binds, that they don’t have loops.

 

Smoke Alarms and CO Detectors

New homes all come with smoke alarms, but builders often leave out carbon monoxide detectors. To be safe, you should install a carbon monoxide detector/alarm in the hallway near every separate sleeping area of the home, especially if your home has any non-electric appliances, including a gas furnace, range, fireplace, water heater, or room heaters, or if you have an attached garage, in which you might, but shouldn’t, leave a running car.

 
Your New ‘Safe’ Home Moving into a new home is exciting.

Just be sure to plan for the safety needs of children when buying and moving into your new home. See our childproofing guide for more safety tips.
Source: Keep Kids Healthy
Editor’s Note: We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com