How you could avoid bathroom accidents
Highlights
- The Engineer should take a keen interest in the inclination of the bathroom floor, bearing in mind “convenience and the drainability”
- Where funds can allow, do not compromise on the bathroom space. Do not squeeze yourself in that room.
By Avini Jimmy
Owing to dynamism in fashion, lifestyle and convenience, the desire to have “Self-contained” structures (houses) is quite a common phenomenon, and much desired adaptation.
The self-contained house essentially refers to that house with most of the amenities under the same roof. It is where majorly the toilet and bathrooms are located under the same roof.
While this setting in design is mostly informed by convenience, laziness has also not totally departed from the bigger part of the influence. In the names of convenience, laziness finds fertile grounds to thrive (well, this is not my interest in this writeup today).
It is also very evidently clear that this writeup may come as a bitter reminder to many who have partaken of the painful outcome of the bathroom accidents. While this reminder may be factually bitter, it offers more of the precautionary inclination to the reader.
Aware that bathrooms are generally private places, it is possible that one remains unattended to for quite some time without being noticed in that state. Self-help is only what comes handy. Again, this depends on the gravity of the damage.
What to do?
Rough-texture floor tiles: It is a common practice that floor tiles are used to finish the floors of the structure. Aware that there is always constancy of water in the bathroom and that monster called soap, it can be certain that the room will most times be slippery.
While your Engineer is selecting the tiles for the bathrooms, please, pray to him/her, and even to yourself that all of you are not taken up by the fancy looking imprints on those tiles.
Here safety overrides aesthetics. One may choose to finish the bathroom floor with terrazzo; this is even more ideal.
The Engineer should take a keen interest in the inclination of the bathroom floor, bearing in mind “convenience and the drainability”. Ultimately, he should locate a floor trap at the lowest part of the floor to avoid stagnation of water in the room.
It is not just a matter of finishing the room, but an uncompromisable attention must be paid to the functionality of the room.
Adequacy of space: Kindly, where funds can allow, do not compromise on the bathroom space. Do not squeeze yourself in that room. The risk is that, where the space is limited, the accessories get placed in congestion.
Those will become your stumbling objects, because free movement will be highly limited.
Remember, as the soap is on your body (mostly on the face), instinctively you close your eyes as you bathe; because of the fear of the soap entering the eyes and itch them. This momentary blindness means you can easily stumble on any of those object and fall.
Supporting rails: In most cases the support rails are placed in the bathrooms for people who are physically impaired. Rightly so but think of that moment when you are about to fall and have nothing around you to hold on.
Your Engineer should consider this in his design. Sometimes the rails are only fixed to hang clothes, or towels as towel rails. The Engineer should ensure that the rails are firmly fixed to cater for these anticipated functions.
Vibration sensors: Technology has immensely helped to ensure safety. Where funds can allow, your Engineer can choose to install “intense vibration sensor” in the bathroom.
This device works on the principle of trigger and alert. The sensor is installed in the bathroom and connected to an alarm system in either the sitting room or bedroom.
The alarm should only be where it can easily be heard, and somebody is alerted. The system is premised on the fact that, when a person falls with some considerable force in the bathroom, the impact causes vibration.
This vibration (seismic waves) then triggers off the sensor that eventually communicates to the alarm. The vibration threshold is set at installation so that the sensitivity is optimised.
The idea is to always alert somebody when in danger. The risk is when basins fall in there, especially in houses where there are no separate laundry rooms, then the whole house gets noisy all the time.
Sharp objects: Avoid as much as possible having sharp objects in the bathroom. In case of accident, these sharp objects may turn to harm. This means, brittle objects like glasses should be avoided in the bathroom. This is not only in fear of those accidents, but also consider that the bathroom is one of the places in your house with highest temperature contrasts.
In most cases the temperature fluctuations are sharp over very short time. This kind of condition may not be tolerated by glass materials. If you must have anything glassy or transparent in the room, you can use plastic materials that are transparent or translucent in texture to serve the purpose.
I do not write to scare, but to bring to attention of the reader that we swim in domain of danger. Caution is very important.
The writer is a Civil Engineer
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