The Must Have App for 2012

The Electrical Safety Council reported towards the end of last year that a new study found that millions of people in the UK expose themselves and their families to potentially fatal accidents in the home through simple electrical blunders because of an alarming lack of knowledge about the real danger of electricity.

The ESC have since launched a free smartphone app called the Home Electrical Safety Check to help people ensure their families and homes are safe. Fulcher Edwards Ltd took a look at this app and we like it very much.

To give you an idea of how it works, there is a checklist function for each room/area of a house listed as follows;

Living room
Kitchen/utility room
Bathroom
Bedroom
Garden/shed/garage

When you click on the relevant area it brings up a list of accessories you could have in that room, for example sockets, lights and electrical appliances to name a few, so if you click on 'Bathroom' and then 'sockets' it has the following come up...

'if there are sockets in the bathroom, they must be protected by an RCD (residual current device) and a minimum of three meters away from the bath or shower to avoid water splashes'.

In each section the user gets the chance to tick the areas that may need to be resolved or get a registered electrician to look at. Each ticked item then gets put in the 'Flagged for review' section of the app for the user to return too. Anything that is highlighted with a yellow triangle advises the user to speak with a registered electrician about that particular matter.

We found the app really easy to use and informative so will be telling our domestic customers and landlord's about it. Hopefully more app's will become available in the future to help raise electrical awareness in homes and businesses as electrical safety still seems to take a back seat at times.

This free app is available for iPhone and Android phones - just go to the App Store or Android Market, search for ‘Home Electrical Safety Check’ then follow the instructions to download.

A free app that can protect you and your family? It's a no brainer really.