Appliance safety issues

Do you Keep a fire extinguisher near your appliances? If one of your appliances suddenly caught fire could you try to put it out, or would you be helpless? This article has been inspired after hearing all the news coming out of the Grenfell fire inquiry. They’ve been discussing all the contributing factors to the

Ideally yes you should turn off certain appliances at the socket when not in use. If the wall socket doesn’t have an on off switch it would need to be unplugged instead. Electricity still runs inside an appliance even if it’s switched off. If electricity is present, there is always the possibility of something overheating

This is part 2 of a series of articles about the dangers of modern white goods appliances and how you can improve appliance safety in your home. Read part 1 first (How dangerous are our appliances?) for a full understanding of these very real dangers. This is not just a shallow list of do’s and

White goods appliances come with an inherent risk. We do not need to increase this risk. Bad design, poor quality, user misuse and complacency all increase this risk unnecessarily. If you haven’t experienced any incidents or know someone who has, it might seem unnecessary to read this article. The reality is that many of our

You need to be careful when using extension leads and cables with washing machines. This advice also goes for dishwashers and tumble dryers. It’s not ideal to plug a washing machine permanently into an extension cable because it introduces an extra risk of electrical overheating. Miele for example say in their washing machine instruction book,

There are several safety related issues concerning plugging appliances either into double adapters, modern multiple extension sockets, or long extension leads. There are multi socket extension cables with room for up to 6 different appliances. As long as their combined usage doesn’t exceed 13 Amps you can safely plug in and use up to 6