Winter calls for safe use of gas appliances

[Naveed Yaseen]

Afshan S. Khan
With winter fast approaching, one needs to get fully prepared for cold days and chilly nights ahead, with utmost attention focused on the use of household gas appliances that require proper cleaning and servicing.

Because of extreme winter in twin cities, the architects make the provision of smoke ventilation systems or proper fireplaces in houses to fix gas heaters but there are some builders who totally eliminate the fireplace facility to cut down the cost and just do away with only a gas connection in every room.

There are many houses that cater to chimneys or proper ducts for emitting smoke but those that don’t have chimneys or fireplaces are quite vulnerable to accidents and mishaps due to sheer negligence of the inhabitants.

Gas supply in winter is frequently interrupted and the pressure is low to the extent that even cooking becomes a tedious task. With so many advertisements almost daily doing the rounds of print and electronic media about the safe usage of gas appliances, people still fall victim to the facility due to their negligence. They light the heater in their bedrooms and keep it on for the whole night. During the night when the gas pressure lowers, the heater extinguishes but as soon as the pressure resumes, the gas leaks continuously, leading to loss of life due to suffocation or explosions.

Heaters also consume oxygen while burning, causing lower oxygen amounts in the room if not properly ventilated. There have been many cases reported about whole families suffocating to death due to lack of oxygen due to burning heaters in rooms with poor ventilation.

Every year, many deaths and burn injuries occur in gas heater related accidents that can be avoided if some simple safety measures are ensured such as making sure that the heaters are in a proper working condition, their connecting rubber tubes are not leaking, the room is properly ventilated, and the heaters are properly consuming gas. If the connecting rubber tube comes in front of the heater, it may cause a serious accident due to gas leakage from the melted tube, resulting in injury or death due to a blast.

Families with children in the house should get their heaters fixed at places that are out of the children’s reach to avoid any untoward incident. Infants can severely burn their hands in case they touch the grills of a burning heater.

There have been many incidents even in schools over the past years related to gas explosions. School students should be properly guided in order to equip them with the correct knowledge of the usage of gas appliances for their safety in winters.

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