New building rules for making New Zealand homes safer will eventually see all smoke alarms interconnected and the temperature of water in our bathroom taps reduced.
The changes to the Building Code come into effect late 2024 and impact all new building projects and major renovations.
"They aim to improve the quality and reliability of plumbing and drainage services and to protect people from fire in their homes," said Dr Dave Gittings, MBIE's manager of building performance and engineering.
The water temperature in every shower, bath, bidet and hand basin in new homes being built must reduce from a maximum of 55C down to 50C.
"It reduces the scald time for deep tissue scalds from 10 seconds at 55C to 1 minute at 50C so it's quite a large safety barrier," said Dr Gittings.
Statistics show it's the elderly and toddlers who're most vulnerable from water scalds in the home. Between 2010 and 2019, 130 people were admitted to a burns unit, 64 percent of them children under four.
Fourteen-year-old Karla Tuare is one of those. The Māngere Bridge resident is a burns survivor after sustaining burns to a third of her body as a four-year-old.
She was pushed into a boiling bath while playing with another child.
"The only place I could touch her was her head," said her mother Kelly Tuihalangingie.
She's applauding MBIE's changes for new builds, saying she would hate to see others go through what her daughter has.
"It was pretty scary and freaky because you cannot hug your child."
If you're not building but are still worried your bathroom tap water is burning, call a plumber - hot water storage units still have to stay well above 50C.
"It's important the temperature remain at 60C in the storage unit to prevent legionella disease," said Dr Gittings.
Smoke alarm changes are also on the cards for new builds. From the end of 2024 they'll all have to be interconnected, rather than stand-alone alarms outside bedrooms and in a home's escape route.
MBIE said the majority of fatal fires occur in bedrooms and living areas when people are sleeping. Interconnected smoke alarms let everyone throughout a house know about a fire at the same time, even if they are further away from the fire or sleeping.
Many homeowners already opt to wire smoke alarms into the burglar alarm. Interconnecting ones in all new homes though, will come at double the cost.
"If you've got five of them in a house you might be looking at $500 or so by the time they are installed (for the wireless ones). If they are wired it'll be a bit more," said Auckland electrician Mark Swords.
Swords said it's a small price to pay to ensure families of the future survive house fires.
The new rules call for interconnected alarms in every new bedroom and living space, on every level of a new build home.
MBIE predicts that will further reduce the number of fatalities and injuries every year.
"They provide a two to three times increase in the ability to alert occupants in residential fires and provide longer times for occupants to respond and escape from a fire."
