Child Safety During Home Renovations

Safety is an important consideration in any home renovation, but when children live in a home under reconstruction, keeping them out of harm's way isn't as simple as it may seem. Kids are curious, exploratory beings, and simply having an area with something new, interesting and dangerous going on is an attractive nuisance.

“Parents really need to talk to their kids who are old enough to understand and lay down ground rules for the renovation,” says Eric Phillips, vice president and general manager at DreamMaker Bath and Kitchen of the Triangle in Apex, NC. “And once the rules are there, parents really have to have the discipline to enforce those rules with their kids.”

The first step, of course, is awareness of the dangers that lurk for children during a home renovation.

Change Home Habits
One of the most difficult things for children to get used to during a home renovation is changing the way they use their home. This is especially true when a remodel is focusing on a room the kids use every day, like a kitchen, bath, or living area.

Phillips says the contractor and the family need to work together to set up alternative areas that will fulfill the family's basic needs while the job is underway. “If I'm doing a kitchen remodel, for example, we'll set up a temporary kitchen somewhere like a garage or extra room,” he says. “Just having a refrigerator, microwave, and crock pot in a separate area helps kids stay out of that area.”

For bathrooms, parents need to help kids remember to stay out of those areas, whether it's by locking doors, putting up physical barriers like plastic sheeting, or adding signs around the house.

Prepare the Air
More and more children (and adults) suffer from allergies and asthma than ever, and the dust and particulates brought into the home through a large remodeling project can be damaging to the health of the air in the household.

Protecting the quality of the air you breathe is one of the most important steps you can take to keep your family save during a renovation, says the carpenter Christopher Ashe.

“Sealing off any HVAC ducting or vents in the area, hanging plastic sheeting, using disposable drop cloths and maintaining a clean workspace by vacuuming all horizontal surfaces with a HEPA-filtered vacuum at least twice a day, preferably more often, can really protect your family from the particulates and dust that can get into the air,” he says. And these steps are particularly important, he adds, if there are any materials like asbestos or lead paint that will be disturbed during the project.

Phillips says his workers seal off areas and HVAC units with plastic sheeting, and they also use “air scrubbers” while doing work like sanding drywall to protect the household's air. “There's so much more allergies and asthma in kids than there used to be, it seems,” he says. “We have to be very conscious of the materials, dust and particulates in households.”

Keep Tools Tamed
Many children's toys have buttons to push and sliders to move that often result in colorful lights, funny noises, or fun moving parts. Now, consider how the average power tool would look to a three- or four-year-old.

“Parents should tell contractors they shouldn't leave power tools there overnight—or plugged in and within reach when kids are in the house,” says Phillips. “Taking batteries out of cordless tools or moving those out of reach and unplugging corded tools is definitely a good idea.”

Just keeping track of where all the tools are can be a challenge, Especially with large jobs that aren't necessarily isolated to one area of the house,. “At the end of the day, we like to have a ‘tool gathering’ where we collect all our tools and put them in one secure area,” says Dean Bennett, president of Castle Rock, CO-based Dean Bennett Design and Construction. “That's good for us, too, because tools can get scattered during a day's work. But you don't want a kid finding a tool somewhere on the site and deciding to see how it works.”