Safety in Short Newsletter May 2008

Do not hide your talents, they were made for us to use. What good is a sundial in the shade?

The teaching of one virtuous person can influence many; that which has been learned well by one generation can be passed on to a hundred.

Aerodynamically the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway.

The golden thread that runs through the life of all great men is the willingness to fail in order to succeed.

Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence.

Five-gallon buckets are often used for cleaning, and can be a drowning hazard for very young children. It is very hard for top heavy infants to escape from tall, stable buckets when they topple in headfirst. In fact, the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) reports that 275 children under the age of five died from events related to bucket drownings since 1984. The Home Safety Council suggests using smaller buckets to reduce this risk, and taking safe steps while cleaning your home:

Always empty buckets after using them and store them with the top facing
down.

Never leave a bucket or cleaning supplies alone.

Young children should be watched with extra care around standing water.

Store large buckets upside down and out of children's reach.

Do not leave empty containers in yards or around the house where they may fill with water and can pose a threat to young children.

Always practice constant touch supervision around any body of water.
Touch supervision means that you are close enough to your child to reach
out and touch him/her. Older children should not be left in charge of
younger children around water.

Teach children that pool fittings, drains and grates are not toys and they
should never stick their fingers or toes in them.

Use plastic ware instead of glass in the pool area.

Inflatable toys and rafts can deflate. Non-swimmers should not use them in water over their heads.

Safety Assignment

If you own a pool, install four-sided fencing to surround the pool and a
self-latching, locking gate.

Learn CPR and buy a cordless, water resistant telephone to keep by the
pool.

If your children visit neighbors or friends with a pool, be sure they are watched by an adult and know the safety rules of pool use.

Most of the world's people must walk at least 3 hours to fetch water!

The 7-Eleven Extreme Gulp is 50% bigger than the volume of the human stomach!

A single cup of gasoline, when ignited, has the same explosive power as five sticks of dynamite.

Each 5 m.p.h. you drive over 60 m.p.h. is like paying an additional $.10 a gallon for gas!

Deep Breathing gives you health benefits similar to aerobics.

Going the Way of the Typewriter

I read this story a few weeks ago that was written by someone at the Energy Information Administration that I found interesting and though I would pass it along.

A generation is growing up in the United States with no idea what a typewriter is! Once an important part of the work place, typewriters are almost impossible to find these days. Will the same be said about home heating oil tanks, outside limited areas, several generations from now?

Two weeks ago, EIA released the 2005 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) housing characteristics data. The RECS is done every four years and provides information on the use of energy in residential housing units in the United States. The latest data shows that the number of households using distillate fuel oil (also known as heating oil) for their main space heating fuel has declined steadily from its peak of 17.2 million homes in 1973.

By 1980, EIA estimated that 13.4 million homes (16 percent) of U.S. homes were heating with fuel oil; 8.2 million were in the Northeast Census Region, which comprises the New England and Middle Atlantic Census Divisions. Data from the 2005 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) now show the number of U.S. homes heating with fuel oil has fallen by more than half to 7.7 million homes (6.9 percent of the U.S.). The Northeast Census Region accounts for 81 percent of all homes that use fuel oil for main space heating (up from 61 percent in 1980).

Although 2 million fewer homes used fuel oil in the Northeast Region in 2005 than in 1980, it remains a critical fuel for that area; 6.2 million or 30 percent of all Northeast homes rely on fuel oil to heat their homes in winter.

Factors contributing to the decrease in fuel oil use include both homebuilder and consumer preferences for alternatives. In the South and West Census Regions, more new housing has been built with heating systems that use other fuel types, particularly electricity. The increasing availability of fuels other than fuel oil also makes fuel substitution for existing systems possible.

For example, in the Northeast Census Region, about 7.8 million more homes in 2005 than in 1990 were located in neighborhoods where natural gas is available, although not always used. In 2005, a total of 15.6 million homes had natural gas available in Northeast neighborhoods; of those, about 13.6 million used gas for any purpose. Two million who had access did not use gas at all, and about 200,000 used it only for uses other than space heating, such as cooking or water heating. This suggests a potential for more use of natural gas for space heating, but over the years, this residual has been consistently small and stable.

The decline in fuel oil use is reflected in consumer choice, especially by homeowners in the Northeast. Since 1990, there have been 2 million more natural gas and 200,000 fewer fuel oil central warm-air furnace systems. During the same period, about 200,000 more Northeast households used natural gas in steam or hot water heating systems and 1.1 million fewer used fuel oil.

Although fewer homes are using fuel oil, especially in the South, the Midwest, as well as the Northeast Census Regions, other factors are affecting overall consumption for space heating. Since 1990, there are more than 17 million new housing units in the U.S. About 13.7 million are single family homes which are larger and house fewer people than in 1990. These factors partially offset improvements in energy intensities per household, per capita and per square foot resulting from efficiency gains of new appliance standards.

Each time a RECS survey has been conducted, about a third of the heating systems are consistently fewer than ten years old. With new price levels for fuel oil, the next RECS will likely show even fewer homes using fuel oil and increased pressure to upgrade equipment in new and existing housing stock, and perhaps several generations from now, use of fuel oil for home space heating will be extremely rare.