Stair Safety At Home

One of the more dangerous places in the home isn’t one of the places that you might expect. It’s not out in the garage among the machines like the lawnmower or the chainsaw—its not even in the basement beside the furnace or near the gas lines. One of the more dangerous places in your home is a place that you usually need to go over at least once a day on your way somewhere. It’s the stairs.

Many serious injuries take place in the house but there’s no need to panic and try to avoid the stairs. They can be rendered safe as a long as you take a few simple suggestions to heart. First off, you need to ask yourself if you’ve got a enough light to properly illuminate all the stairs that you need to climb on a regular basis. For the ones that you don’t find the need to use regularly, you might be able to get away with keeping a flashlight in a cupboard nearby, but for all those that can be classified as high traffic, you should install lights at these strategic locations.

You’ll need to keep all the stairs up in your home as well. And this doesn’t just mean that the stairs should be fixed if they are broken—all protruding nails and bunched up stair coverings need to be looked after too. Just because you know how to avoid that part of the stairs doesn’t mean that all your guests will and it’s possible you could be sued if the stairs are found to be in a state of disrepair and someone in your home hurts themselves.

Handrails are a great safety feature but they only work well if they’re properly attached to the wall. You should be able to place your hand all the way around it and of course the railing needs to be properly affixed to the wall so it has no give.   

Make sure those stairs are free of anything that’s not meant to be there. Remember that you should never use a landing as a storage area, and you should always check the stairs that you are walking on for debris like children’s toys and such. Remember that the best way to go up and down the stairs is slowly. A nice pace that will allow you to stay focused is the one that the experts agree is the safest and make sure that you’ve got a good view of where you’re going. Many stairway accidents are the result of blocked vision.       

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