How Safe Is Your Home?

Every year in the UK, more than 200 people are hospitalised with carbon monoxide poisoning with an average of 40 of those people dying. Safety and taking precautions is drummed into us from a young age so why are we taking such a risk with the lives of us and our families? The most at risk are small children and the elderly – two groups of people I feel strongly about having a son and an elderly father. Corgi have created a microsite for families to see how dangerous some appliances can be and how real the threat of carbon monoxide poisoning is. You can find it here.

With everyone having switched their boilers off for summer, now is the time where they will be getting switched on after a long period of inactivity. Who is to know what dangers it could be posing? Maybe none, maybe a very big one. Without a detector, how will families know if carbon monoxide is seeping out and slowly killing them? It is odourless and colourless. A silent killer.

An estimated one in six homes in the last three years was found to have an unsafe gas appliance when inspected by the Gas Safe Register with one in eleven having an unsafe boiler. The Corgi site really helps to educate and advise people in the dangers of such a devastating killer.
Why are we leaving ourselves in such danger?

Whether in your own home or privately rented, please make sure you have a carbon monoxide detector fitted and keep yourself aware of the risks. The number of hospitalisations and deaths are far too many in this day and age when we have the technology to detect it – let’s stamp this silent killer out.

Note: We were sent a carbon monoxide detector for posting this which I gave to someone we knew needed one but were too stubborn to get fitted. If someone you know is the same, please help them out and make sure they’re safe – even if they won’t.