In 1986 a young girl lost a limb when a kitchen stove tipped over and crushed her. As a result all free standing stoves sold since 1991 come with an anti-tip bracket included in the bag with the instruction manual. Sadly most brackets are never installed. Younger children are the most common victims, opening the door to step up and see what mom is cooking which is just like double jeopardy!
The added weight on the door flips the stove over, the pot of boiling water or frying pan with hot grease follows often resulting in much worse injury’s than those directly from the stove. It only takes about five minutes to install the supplied bracket. It is screwed to the floor and or wall and holds down one of the back feet of the stove preventing it from tipping over. If you do not have a bracket installed make it a priority, all stoves use the same bracket and replacements are readily available.
We note it in our reports if the stove is not secured and are amazed when we find one that is, less than one in twenty stoves we inspect are installed with the anti-tip bracket. To check if your bracket is installed grasp the back of the stove and with your foot against the bottom front; pull, the stove should not tilt. To see the bracket pull the stove out about ten inches, look behind down at the floor and it should be there about two inches in from the side of the stove.
Save a child today from being scalded, injured or worse, yet killed.
Leave a Reply