You’ve probably lived in your home for quite some time and might decide it’s time to change its outlook. Alternatively, there might be an aspect you want to change in your home. Either situation will require you to renovate your home to meet your current style and needs. This more or less defines renovation, which is improving an existing building.
You can decide to undertake this project as a do-it-yourself (DIY) or hire a professional. Despite your preference, one thing is common and crucial, safety. You want to ensure your safety and those in your surroundings. What safety measures should you adopt as a homeowner planning a renovation project?
Here’s what you need to do:
- Clear Your Workspace
Be sure to clear everything up before starting a project. Your workspace needs to be clear of any distractions during the project execution. A tool carelessly lying around could injure your feet or cause you to fall and hurt yourself.
Suppose the renovation is to happen in all the rooms in your home. Have a plan on which space to start and end with. Ensure the room you’re working on is clear and only has the items you’ll require for the project.
Some crucial steps you should take are unplugging your appliances, arranging your tools (preferably in order of use), and ensuring your children aren’t within the vicinity. Your child getting injured during project execution has many negative consequences.
Suppose your child is injured in the process as a contractor executes their job. In that case, you might have to hire a child injury attorney to ensure your child is compensated properly. Yet it’s best to avoid these accidents; child safety is more important than injury compensation.
- Adopt The Right Tools
This safety measure is quite important, especially if you’re undertaking the project as a DIY. You want to use the right tools for the job to avoid accidents. How do you know the right tools to use?
It’d help to create a scope of work for your project; it includes the activities you will execute for the project. For each activity, allocate the tools you need to execute it. With the list, head to your local hardware store and purchase them. Suppose you don’t know the tools you need for t your project. Your vendor should assist you accordingly; provide them with your scope of work.
As you purchase your tools, ensure you buy quality ones that won’t come apart as you use them. You don’t want the hammer head to come off and fall on your feet due to improper jointing. You’ll sustain injuries as a result, which you want to avoid.
- Wear The Appropriate PPEs
When performing your home renovation project, you expect everything to go as you planned, especially regarding safety. But this isn’t always the case; there’s always a possibility of things going wrong. Therefore, you must prepare for such situations to ensure your safety. One sure way of doing this is wearing the right Personal Protective Equipment (PPE.)
With PPE, there’ll be fewer bodily injuries in case of an accident. The main PPEs to wear are overalls or long-sleeved clothes, safety shoes and eyewear, gloves, and a helmet. You might wonder how some of this equipment is essential, yet you aren’t on a construction site.
The benefit of overall or long-sleeved clothes is to prevent chemicals from getting to your skin. A chemical you’re using might splash against a surface and end up on your skin. As a result, you might get burns or rashes and need medical assistance. You might fall off a ladder; a helmet will protect you by preventing head injury.
One thing to ensure as you wear PPEs is that they’re of the right size. Otherwise, they might end up causing harm instead of protecting you. An oversized glove might get stuck in a tool you’re using, resulting in an accident. You want to avoid this as much as possible.
Even as the discussion continues with PPEs, it’s important to mention the advantage of a first aid kit. Do make sure that it’s full and has all the basic tools and medications to assist you. Some basic tools are antiseptic, bandages, surgical blades, gloves, adhesive tape, and dressings.
As you invest in a first-aid kit, it’s important to point out that this kit will only assist you if you know how to utilize it. Therefore, it’s crucial to learn basic first-aid skills to assist in protecting those you’re working with, yourself included. You can enrol in a course or use the internet to learn first-aid skills.
- Know Your House Plan
A renovation project often requires the destruction or removal of one or two house elements. Hence, it’s only right that you know the geography of your home. The main aspect to figure out is where your utility lines are located. These include gas, electricity, and water supply systems. Without knowing where they pass through, you might damage them during the project and cause havoc in your home.
A damaged water pipe might cause floods and water damage in your home, with gas pipes bursting, increasing the risks of explosions. You can find this information in your house plan drawings. If you don’t know how to interpret drawings, seek assistance from your contractor. If you have no knowledge of interpreting the drawing, seek assistance from your contractor.
Knowing the load-bearing and non-load-bearing elements in your home is also advisable. You don’t want to bring down a wall to create more space only for your home to crumble. Be sure not to touch any load-bearing elements to protect the structural integrity of your home.
- Know When To Seek Assistance
This safety measure mainly applies if you execute your home renovation project independently. In most cases, DIYers know what they’re doing in terms of the skills of the job at hand. But when executing your project, you might get stuck or experience a hitch that you have no idea how to proceed with. In such situations, it’s advisable to seek the assistance of a professional. They’ll know what to do; you don’t want to put yourself in harm’s way.
Suppose you’re painting your walls and come across a section with water damage or mold. You might decide to cover it up, which shouldn’t be the case. Doing so might solve the problem today but cause havoc tomorrow, not forgetting the associated future project costs. Mold is toxic and accidental exposure will negatively affect your health. In such scenarios, it’s best to seek professional assistance.
Besides needing professional assistance, you also want to ask for help where there’s a need. If you need to move a large object and you’re working alone, seek help from your neighbour or friend. By doing this, you won’t injure your limbs and joints.
Conclusion
Safety is paramount during your home renovation project. You want to complete it in one piece without any negative incidences. The discussion above lays out simple but effective safety measures you should adopt for your project. It’s best to adopt them to ensure safety. With the adoption, you’ll have an easy time with your project execution.