Safety at home
Safety at home
Your safety is important to us. There are a number of ways that you can stay safe at home. Here are some guides to ways you can avoid injury or even death in your home.
- Winter preperations
- Gas safety
- Fire safety
- Electrical safety
- Asbestos
- Using specialist equipment
- Your tap water
Winter preperations
We’re preparing for ice and snow this winter and have already put gritting plans in place for our estates and schemes.
This winter, our care schemes, foyers, community centres and uncovered ramps and stairs on our estates will be treated as a priority and gritted within 24 hours of a severe weather warning. Other lower priority pedestrian access routes will be gritted within 48 hours, but in exceptional weather conditions such as prolonged snowfall, it may not be possible for us to grit within these timescales.
Gritting plans will be posted in the front entrances of care schemes, foyers, community centres and estates, if a plan hasn’t been posted where you live, talk to your neighbourhood manager or scheme manager.
Gas safety
Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas which can kill without warning – it does not have a smell and you cannot see it. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are like flu, but without the fever. They include headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea and dizziness.
Download our latest gas safety flyer here (658KB PDF).
Fire safety
Home fires can devastate your family, yet so many of them are preventable. Keep your family and your neighbours safe by following a few simple rules. Fit smoke alarms in your home and test them regularly, have a fire escape plan and make sure everyone in your household is familiar with it, check everything is safe and switch off before going to bed. If you live in a block of apartments, please make sure that communal areas, such as corridors and stair wells, are kept clear. Never store personal belongings or rubbish in communal areas as these pose a serious fire risk.
Download our fire safety tips here (300KB PDF).
We're in the process of installing premises information boxes in several of our schemes and estates. Premises information boxes give the emergency services key information on a building, should there be an emergency such as a fire. You can find out more about the boxes here.
Electrical safety
Faulty or badly installed electrical appliances can be extremely dangerous and cause home fires and fatal electric shocks. For this reason it’s extremely important to ensure your electrical appliances are properly installed and maintained by a qualified electrician.
For more electrical safety tips visit the Electrical Safety Council’s Safety in the home page.
Asbestos
Asbestos has been used as a building material for many years, mainly from the 1940s and right up until the late 1990s. It was extremely useful as heat insulation and providing protection from fires but as it is harmful to health when it is either damaged or disturbed, it is no longer used and the use of all asbestos was banned in 1999. Asbestos can still be found in some homes that were built before this time, however asbestos is not a problem if it is left alone; it is only dangerous if it is damaged or disturbed, such as during DIY activities. Do not drill, sand, scrape or cut into any surface that you think could contain asbestos without speaking to our repairs team first.
To ensure residents' safety, we carry out a number of asbestos surveys every year. We will write to you in advance if we need to survey your property. Please help us by letting our asbestos surveyors into your home to carry out these important inspections .
Download our asbestos flyer here (248KB PDF).
Using specialist equipment
If your home has been adapted to suit your needs, East Thames may have provided you with specialist equipment to help you carry out day to day activities and move about your home more easily. Specialist equipment includes grab rails, stair lifts, bath lifts, hoists and household lifts. Where East Thames has fitted specialist equipment to your home and you have problems with it or it is damaged, please contact us on 0845 600 0830 and we will arrange for the equipment to be repaired.
For information on how to look after your equipment, download our guide to looking after your specialist equipment here (970KB PDF).
Your tap water
The tap water in your home meets very high standards. At East Thames, we do everything we can to make sure it stays that way, and that includes regularly testing communal stored water to ensure its quality. Poor water quality can cause bacteria to form, which can cause legionnaires disease. But these simple tips will help ensure your tap water stays safe for drinking, cooking and washing.
Taps and showers
If you’ve been away from home for a week or two, make sure you run the water for a couple of minutes to allow fresh water into the pipe. Regularly clean your taps and showerhead to get rid of the bacteria that lives in scale deposits. If your tap water ever runs brown or yellow, call us straight away.
Hot water cylinders and immersion heaters
Bacteria can grow in water cylinders and tanks, but setting your thermostat to 60°C will kill almost all harmful bacteria, including those that cause legionnaires’ disease. If this is too hot, just mix with cold water before using it. If you or a member of your household has sensory loss, using water at 60°C could cause scalding, so please contact us.
Cold water storage tanks
Some homes are supplied with cold water from a water tank, often situated in cupboards or the loft. If you have a water tank, always make sure it is insulated and covered with a lid to prevent dust, insects, mice or birds from getting into it. Check your tank once a year and let us know if you need a new lid or extra insulation.
