Ensure Safety with Hot Water-or Suffer the Consequences
For those responsible for putting the system in place and maintaining it, the danger is in the potential lawsuits.
Ignoring the design, installation and operation of excessively hot water for bathing and showering can lead to severe scald burns that cause debilitating, permanent injuries or even death for the user. And for those responsible for installing and maintaining the hot-water system, the danger is in the potential for losing lawsuits-and rightfully so.
The problem with hot-water scald burns is that there's a drastic increase in injury risk with relatively small increases in water temperature. The data in Table 1 illustrate this burn-time-to-water-temperature relationship. The chance for survival and the mortality rate with thermal burns as a function of age and percent of second- and third-degree burns are shown in Figure 1. To really appreciate the drastic changes in risk, note, for example, that it takes about 60 minutes at 115¿F for an adult to get third-degree burns, compared to only five seconds at 140¿F. Even more startling: It takes about 11 minutes at 115¿F for a child to receive second-degree burns, compared to less than one second at 140¿F.