5 Ways to Make Your Bathroom Safer
Reviewed By:
Timothy Yarboro, M.D.
Keeping your bathroom safe is one of the most important ways to protect your family. Dangers lurk everywhere in this room. Wet floors cause dangerous falls, unlocked medicine cabinets pose poison hazards to children and excessively hot water scalds skin.
Bathroom safety is important at any age, but especially if young children or aging parents live in your home. Fortunately, you can dramatically improve bathroom safety by following a few easy-to-implement steps.
Here are five ideas that can increase bathroom safety for your entire family:
- Use nonskid bath mats or strips. Whenever water pools on a floor surface, a potentially life-threatening hazard is born. Place textured mats or strips in tubs and showers to reduce floor slickness and lessen the risk of dangerous falls. Also affix these strips on surfaces surrounding the tub or shower, since these areas often get wet.
Mats and strips make falls less likely, but you should also immediately dry off any bathroom surface that becomes wet. Because floors can get wet despite your best efforts, it's important to use rugs that have rubber backing which are less likely to slip when the floor beneath them becomes wet.
- Keep electrical appliances away from water. Today, most bathrooms have ground fault protection electrical outlets. These safeguards sense when current flows to the ground and instantly shut off the power, dramatically reducing the risk of electrocution when a plugged-in appliance falls into water.
Nonetheless, this type of outlet does not eliminate all risk. Therefore, it's important to keep hairdryers, curling irons and other electrical devices unplugged around standing water.
- Watch your children. The bathroom contains a long list of potential hazards to children. For example, a small child can drown in about 2 inches (5 centimeters) of water. That means tubs, toilets, sinks and buckets all pose serious danger. Children can also ingest medicines, cleaning products and other harmful substances typically stored in bathrooms.
Supervise young children whenever they are in the bathroom. Also install locks on all cabinets to prevent children from getting hold of dangerous substances.
- Turn down the water temperature. Many water heaters are set at a default temperature of about 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65.6 degrees Celsius). Water this hot can scald skin in seconds. Turning the temperature down to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius), or to the "low" setting, can make such burns less likely.
Alternatively, most home improvement stores carry special faucets and valves designed to prevent scalding.
- Install handrails and locks that open from the outside. Handrails are more typically installed in homes where elderly and physically handicapped people live, but they can protect people of all ages. They prevent falls when installed in tubs, showers and next to toilets.
Also, consider installing locks that open from both inside and outside the bathroom. Children commonly lock themselves inside the bathroom. Adults who slip and fall or who have a seizure may be unable to unlock the door from inside. In some cases, the ability to unlock a bathroom door from the outside could save a life.
So don’t let your bathroom become a danger zone. With a few basic changes, you can help reduce bathroom injuries and keep your whole family safe.
