Jury Accuses Government for Faulty Heating Thermostat

The jury on an inquest into the death of Rhianna Hardie in November 2006 has blamed the government for the failure that lead to accident. Ten month old Rhianna suffered 95% burns when the water tank in the loft above her bed burst due to a failed thermostat heating the water to boiling levels and overwhelming the tank.

As of April 2004 plumbers and heating engineers are instructed to only install modern thermostat with a double trip protection that would have stopped the immersion heater from causing the fatal accident.
Michael Rose, the Coroner, plans to write to the government following the results of the inquest and highlight the risk of faulty heating thermostat, and pressing the government to take an active step and reduce the risk of this happening again.

Analysis by experienced plumbers showed that the thermostat on the immersion heater failed, thus not tripping the heater when it reached the pre-set temperature. Most plumbers these days only install modern thermostat with the immersion heating unit that has double trip protection preventing such over heating of the hot water cylinder. If the home of Rhianna were examined by a qualified plumber, it would have been easy to see that the thermostat is of an older generation, and a professional plumber needs to replace it with the new model.

Danny Davis, technical officer for the officer for the Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineers commented that a competent plumber or heating engineer would look at the entire system when inspecting it to evaluate the impact of a single component failing. He said: “most people with gas central heating would only use the immersion heater if the main boiler wasn’t working properly and they needed to heat up water. However for older systems the immersion heater is the only way for heating up the water and it should be checked by a qualified plumber on a regular basis”.

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Tags : Cylinder, Thermostat

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