Horne Engineering have designed and developed the Heatstat T2 (TMV2) thermostatic mixing valve specifically for the domestic market. Additional information about this market is contained in our newsletters,


Thermostatic Mixing Valves and the Domestic Market: The Facts - ISSUE 2'.

'Thermostatic Mixing Valves and the Domestic Market: The Facts - ISSUE 1'.

Safety in the Bathroom campaign supports TMV2 scheme.
Heating, Ventilating & Plumbing, January 2004.

In early November, at the DTI Conference Centre in London, the Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT) hosted a seminar launchinga raft of initiatives aimed at dramatically reducing scalding accidents in UK bathrooms.

These initiatives - the TMV2 Certification Scheme, TMV2 valve approvals and an important new BRE Information Sheet - are fully supported by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Building Research Establishment (BRE), Housing Corporation, Thermostatic Mixing Valve Manufacturers Association (TMVA) and BuildCert, all of which were represented by eminent speakers.

Following a welcome message by Robin Hope, Chair, CAPT, the opening address was given by Jonathan Rees, Director, Consumer and Competition Policy, DTI, who confirmed DTI support for the TMV2 project.

CAPT: The current problem
Katrina Phillips, Chief Executive of CAPT, described the current problem of bath time scalding, its scale and the significance of the measures being launched.

Domestic hot water for bathing and cleansing must be stored at temperatures of 60C to prevent the proliferation of legionella bacteria and any risk of potentially fatal Legionnaires Disease. Yet, water at 60C will cause serious scalding injuries.

Healthy adult skin requires just 30 seconds of exposure to water at 54 - 55C before third degree burning occurs. Water temperatures of 60C can produce third degree burns in approximately five seconds. At 70C, similar injuries occur in well under one second. The skin of children and the elderly is even more suscepible.

Hot bath water is responsible for the highest number of fatal and severe scalding injurues among young children. In UK bathrooms each year, around 500 children - the majority under five years old - are admitted to hospital and a further 2000 attend local A & E departments as a result of bath water scalds. DTI figures illustrate that the number of cases have remained unchanged for several years.

Severe scald injuries require many years of lengthy surgical treatment and often produce permanent scarring. To help understanding thof this, details were given about joseph Anderson, winner of the Pride of Britain Bravery Award, who was just two-and-a-half when his accident happened.

Joseph's Story
Joseph's mothe began running his morning bath water. She turned off the hot tap and went to check on her daughter. Within seconds, hearing 'the most terrifying screams', she rushed back to the bathroom to find joseph in the bath writhing and screaming, unable to get out. He had dropped his favourite toy in the bath and then fallen in himself trying to retrieve it.

Selly Oak Hospital specialist burns unit diagnosed Joseph as having 76% body burns. He spend four and a half months in the hospital's high dependency room - three months on the critical list - undergoing 15 life-saving operations and numberous skin grafts.

For 18 months, Joseph had to wear pressure garments that required removal, causing pain, twice daily to apply healing cream to his injuries. He had to learn to walk again with special boots onnhis badly burned feet. It was a whole year before he took his first steps.

Now, eight years old, Joseph does well at school and has many friends. But he still needs special care. He has to be covered with cream every day to prevent his skin drying out and must drink plenty of liquids because his sweat glands were damaged. He will continue to need skin grafts until he stops growing and, as he gets older, will need to come to terms with psychological and physical scars.

Regretfully, other similar cases occur each year. Apart from horrendous human suffering, the financial cost is huge. Threatment for a severe scald injury can cost the NHS as much as £250,000. Today's usual methods of guarding against scald risks relyon adult supervision and proving unreliable.

Working towards the solution
CAPT has been working extensively with the DTI and experts in the field of burn care and plastic surgery, housing policy, litigation, public health, heating technology and building research to raise the profile of risks associated with high domestic bath water outlet temperatures.

They concluded that the best solution to bath-time scalding was to use technology that positively prevented unsafe hot water being discharged from bath taps. they recognised that such as solution would have to be totally reliable and certified as safe.

To this end, CAPT galvanised several organisations to produce the infrastructure and products needed.

Infrasctructure
CAPT has been working closely with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on the revision of Section (4) Hot Surfaces and Materials, of version (2) of the draft guidance to the Government's Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), due to go out for consultation in late 2003. This section will provide local authorities, social and private landlords with information on potential scalding hazards within housing and will help them determine the risk probability and health outcomes relating to scalding.

Also following consultation, the Housing Corporation has agreed to insert a new recommendation item into the revised Scheme Development Standards (SDS) that came into effect on 1st April 2003. The new recommendation is that 'hot water taps to baths should have a thermostatically controlled supply.'

For housing associations bidding for social housing grant allocations after 2003 there is a clear incentive to comply with the SDS criteria.

Relevant organisations were consulted about the valve application, design and certification. This resulted in the TMV2 Certification Scheme, the availability of relevant approved products and the publication of an essential BRE Information Paper.

Information Paper, reference IP 14/03 - Preventing hot water scalds in the bathroom: using TMVs - is published by the Building Research Establishment, in association with CAPT and the TMVA.

TMV2 Scheme and Products
Where there were no previous legislative or approved standards, the BuildCert TMV2 Certification Scheme now provides a means of ensuring that relevant and safe thermostatic mixing valves can be fitted in dwellings to wholly overcome the risk of scalding. The adoption of these standards by the Housing Corporation is seen as a start of their widespread acceptance and, hopefully, their eventual inclusion in the Building Regulations.

Working in close liaison with other parties, the TMVA's members have developed and produced a new generation of thermostatic mixing valves (TMV2) that meet the requirements for housing. BuildCert has already approved several valves and more are undergoing the approval process.