Indoor Health and Safety

Safe, reliable, and continuous home heating and cooling are a necessity of life. The inability to heat or cool one's home adequately can put household members at risk for health and safety problems. Households with a frail elderly, disabled person, or a young child are more prone to the effects of indoor health and safety problems.

Indoor Health

If you suspect that someone is suffering from the cold or heat, call 911 for emergency help.

Home Heating and Your Health

High heating bills can force people to lower the temperatures in their homes in order to save money. However, indoor temperatures can be lowered to unsafe levels, which can result in hypothermia (cold stress or low body temperatures).

Hypothermia (hi-po-ther- mee-uh) can cause illness or even death either indoors or outdoors. Older people may be at greater risk for this condition if their body's response to cold is diminished by certain illnesses like arthritis, medications, and some over-the-counter cold remedies.

A way to identify someone with hypothermia is to look for the "umbles"- stumbles, mumbles, fumbles, and grumbles. Changes in a person's behavior may indicate that the cold is affecting how well that person's muscles and nerves work.

Need more information on hypothermia? See:

• Extreme Cold: A Prevention Guide to Promote Your Personal Health and Safety
  


• Hypothermia: A Cold Weather Hazard
  


• Hypothermia: A Cold Weather Risk for the Elderly
  


• Stay Safe in Cold Weather!
  


• Winter Warmth and Safety: Home Energy Tips for Older Adults
  

Indoor Cooling and Your Health

Summer brings cooling bills. High cooling bills can force people to raise the temperatures in their homes in order to save money. Also, people may try to cope with hot spells by relying on fans in a home in which the windows are closed due to fear of crime. However, indoor temperatures can be raised to unsafe levels, which can result in hyperthermia (heat stress or high body temperatures).

Hyperthermia can cause illness or death either indoors or outdoors. Need more information on hyperthermia? See:

• Excessive Heat Events Guidebook
  


• Extreme Heat: A Prevention Guide to Promote Your Personal Health and Safety
  


• Extreme Heat: Effects on Children and Pregnant Women
  


• Heat Wave: A Major Summer Killer
  


• Planning for Extreme Heat
  


• Tips for Preventing Heat-Related Illness
  

Use of electric fans--The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has indicated that fans may be useful to increase comfort and to draw cool air into your home at night. However, CDC warns that you should not rely on a fan as a primary cooling device during a heat wave. When the temperature is in the high 90s or higher, a fan will not prevent heat-related illness. A cool shower or bath is a more effective way to cool off.

Indoor Safety

As households look for ways to save money in tough economic times, there is increased concern about fire deaths and carbon monoxide poisonings from alternative heating sources. Indoor safety can be endangered by natural disasters, fuel shortages, supply disruptions, home energy equipment failures, and power outages.

Fuel Disruptions/Equipment Failures/Home Fire Safety

The use of makeshift heating sources such as unvented or improperly vented portable heaters, barbecue grills or gas stoves, are not only fire hazards, but also create the risk of asphyxiation (carbon monoxide poisoning) and fire deaths.

Need more indoor safety information? See:

• carbon monoxide poisoning prevention
  


• heaters and fireplaces; see also deadly fire and carbon monoxide hazards with winter home heating
  


• home fire safety
  


• other supplemental heating devices
  


• What You Need to Know When the Power Goes Out Unexpectedly?

Natural Disasters

Natural disasters can result in the loss of home energy due to fuel supply disruptions and/or damage to a home's heating or cooling system. The National Weather Service provides warnings and forecasts of life-threatening weather, including thunderstorms, hailstorms, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, and climate events.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assists the public and businesses recover from natural disasters. FEMA also provides information on what to do when natural disasters strike. FEMA has prepared disaster information on:

• earthquakes, floods and flash floods, hurricanes, landslides, mud flows, tornadoes, tsunamis, thunderstorms, lightning, and volcanoes; and


• extreme heat and fire safety during or after a disaster;


• winter driving, winter storms, winter preparedness safety tips.

If disaster strikes, your community needs to be prepared to respond to people with disabilities, people who speak little or no English, and people who are frail, elderly, very young, or homeless.