Safety at the Summer Vacation Beach Cottage - Use Electrical , Propane & Natural Gas Safely

At the summertime vacation beach cottage that you may well find that you are both using the combination and combinations of both electrical power and natural gas or propane as well , both at the same time at your summertime vacation retreat or side by side. Avoid injuries to yourself, your family and your cottage or summertime camp recreational guests. Use electrical, natural gas, propane gas power and heat all together safely. Avoid injures. Play it safe.

While it is more than true that we all have grown and gotten more than used to the benefits and convenience of electrical power and natural gas , we often and rarely take the time to find out if we are using them safely.

For example – have you ever used a metal fork to remove bread or a bun from an electric toaster? Have you ever turned on the garbage disposal (garborator), without fully drying your hands – with a dry towel or the like? It’s famous in the TV shows that people are too lazy to take the time to safely pull out an electrical cord properly by grasping the electrical power plug and rather take the easy way out and simply yank on the cord, some distance from the electrical plug itself.

By carelessly doing the above you may well have put yourself, your family or guests at menace and in peril if the above were done in the presence of natural gas or propane at the beach or lake cottage. Both natural gas and more commonly propane may well be a convenience at the lake cottage. Beach cottages are now often luxury retreats – complete with hot water (often from natural gas or propane hot water tank or tanks). While these appliances are feverishly working away to heat your hot water – whether for standard hot water for dishes or the bath , or more commonly now than before for luxury items such as hot tubs or gas barbecues – they may be silently or not so silently be spewing out natural gas or propane as well . A gas stove is more obvious as a potential site where a simple electrical spark from careless may serve as an ignition source and start. It’s not as obvious with the others – be it a gas water tank or barbecue but the results are all the same.

What to do? First of all play it safe electrically. Work best to prevent needless electrical sparks which could serve as ignition sources for natural gas and propane. Next never store flammable as well as potentially flammable materials around natural gas or propane furnaces or hot water tanks and devices.

Lastly in addition to standard routine inspections by either the electrical , gas or power utility trained people and personnel one afterthought to think of are to provide for carbon monoxide detectors as well as yearly battery checks and replacements. Carbon monoxide poisoning might not be such a consideration in a breezy summer vacation cottage. Still the results of spewed concentrations of carbon monoxide gas are all the same – whether in a more airtight sealed city home or at the summer vacation property.