Perhaps one of the most challenging traditions of the holiday season is making a shopping list and checking it twice. To help alleviate gift-giving stress, ESFI suggests that you consider gifting home safety devices to your loved ones this year. These unique gift ideas go beyond the traditional, providing the added gift of safety to those with young children in the home.
Help prevent childhood shock and electrical burn injuries by giving your loved ones tamper resistant receptacles, the most effective means of preventing accidental access to or tampering with a wall outlet in the home.
Tamper Resistant Receptacles (TRRs)
Tamper resistant receptacle (TRR) technology provides a simple, permanent solution to help prevent childhood injuries that occur when young children insert foreign objects into electrical outlets. TRRs replace standard wall outlets and may appear identical on the outside, but they are designed with internal spring-loaded receptacle cover plates that close off the receptacle openings or slots. When equal pressure is simultaneously applied to both sides, the receptacle cover plates open, allowing a standard plug to make contact with the receptacle contact points. Without this simultaneous pressure, the cover plates remain closed, preventing children from inserting household items.
Tamper resistant receptacles have proven to be so effective that the 2011 National Electrical Code (NEC) requires installation of TRRs in all new homes. In a newly constructed home, TRRs would add as little as 50 dollars to the total cost of the home. Standard outlets in existing homes can easily be replaced with TRRs for as little as two dollars per outlet. TRRs should be installed by a licensed, qualified electrician using the same installation guidelines that apply to standard receptacles.
Did You Know?
Every day, 7 children are treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms for electrical shock and burn injuries caused by tampering with a wall outlet, according to statistics from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Seventy percent of child-related electrical accidents occur at home, when adult supervision is present.
