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Preparing for emergencies...
15th August 2004
There has been much hype surrounding the publication of HM Government’s ‘Preparing for Emergencies’ Document, which according to the Rt. Hon. Douglas Alexander MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office ‘gives practical common sense advice on what to do in an emergency - for example, a fire, terrorist attack or natural disaster’.
At Oilfiredup.com, we could barely contain ourselves with the prospect of finding out how to build our own shelter, to ensure we could survive the ravages of a nuclear winter. We’d even stocked up on the old iodine tablets, channeled a local stream into our very own desalination plant (cleverly hidden below the Webmaster’s bed) and painted all our windows Pure Brilliant White.
So when the booklet finally popped through the letter box, we were a tad disappointed to find out it concentrated on more mundane preparations for an emergency.
Seriously though, that is no bad thing and Oilfiredup.com certainly concurs with Debbie Spargo, Chief Executive of The Emergency Planning Society when she says ‘The Emergency Planning Society believes that this booklet provides valuable and common sense advice for the public, that can easily be adapted for use in many domestic situations. The fact that every home will have this advice can only be a good thing’.
The booklet covers subject matter including ‘Coping with specific emergencies’, ‘What’s being done to protects the UK from a terrorist attack?’, ‘Emergency contact details’ and ‘What to do if you’re not at home’. Advice is given on how to react on more mundane injuries and emergencies, such as broken bones, bleeding and burns through to advice on what to do if you suspect that you may be unwittingly harbouring a terrorist.
From an oil heating technician and consumer perspective, the section likely to be of most interest is ‘Preparing for emergencies – what you can do’. Much of the information provided is undeniably little more than common sense. But in an emergency, such sense is perhaps not so common and therefore within the context of the booklet is far from out of place.
The booklet notes that ‘In certain very unlikely situations, you may be asked to leave your home by the emergency services’ and advises that if householders have time to do so, they should ‘Turn off electricity, gas and water supplies, unplug appliances and lock all doors and windows’.
Fine in so far as it goes, but nowhere does it recognise that around 1 in 10 British homes have oil fired central heating – a figure that rises to over 3 in 4 homes in some areas of the UK e.g. Northern Ireland. We can’t claim to speak for HM Government, but we suspect that even they wouldn’t recommend that anyone tries to unplug an oil storage tank or an oil boiler, stove or cooker.
So if you’ve oil heating and in the highly unlikely event that you are requested to leave your home due to an emergency, what should you do? Well, follow the advice contained within the ‘Preparing for Emergencies’ Booklet and assuming you have time to do so:
• Switch off your oil boiler, stove or cooker
• Isolate your oil storage tank by closing the isolation valve fitted to the outlet of the tank
Additionally, The Oil Firing Technical Association’s (OFTEC) Richard Gales provided the following useful advice and reassurance for oil heating consumers ‘If the installation has been done correctly, a fail safe fire valve will have been fitted meaning that there is no need for the householder to worry. By simply turning off the electricity this will prevent the operation of automatic firing appliances anyway, such as most boilers which have pressure jet burners and they will not work without power.’
’Electrically operated remote sensing fire valves will close preventing flow of fuel, which is much safer than other fuels like LPG. Electrically controlled vaporising appliances such as range cookers would revert to ‘low fire’ only without electrical power. If a vaporising appliance is turned off then it needs to be left to cool for 12 hours before attempting to re-light.’
It’s worth remembering that oil heating is an exceptionally safe fuel choice and indeed, oil isn’t even flammable at normal room temperature, unlike ‘natural gas’ and ‘LPG’. However, despite this, it is not recommended that oil appliances are left unattended for prolonged periods of time.
Oilfiredup.com has contacted HM Government to relay its concerns over the exclusion of oil heating from the otherwise excellent, booklet, As yet though, we’re still awaiting their response. However, as soon as we receive one, we’ll let you know. In the meantime however, you can check out HM Government’s ‘Preparing for Emergencies’ website, by clicking the link below. For further guidance relating to general oil heating, cooking and storage issues, visit OFTEC Online, by clicking the link below:
