What can I safely stand on indoors to reach something?

The statistics on falls at home are counter-intuitive: most serious ones are from low heights, indoors, during short jobs. Changing a bulb, reaching a cupboard, putting up decorations, hanging a curtain. The reason is not the height but what people stand on — objects designed for something else, on smooth floors, while both hands are busy and their attention is on the ceiling.

Safety

Step by step

1. Buy something to stand on before you need it.A step stool costs less than a takeaway and lives in a cupboard. Almost every improvised climb happens because the alternative was in the garage or did not exist.
2. Check the floor before the step.Hard smooth floors, rugs that slide, and thresholds all matter more than the step itself. Move the rug rather than standing on it.
3. Keep a hand free and something to hold.If both hands are needed and there is nothing to hold, you are relying entirely on balance while looking upwards, which is the position in which balance is worst.
4. Never stand on anything with castors or a swivel.Office chairs cause a large number of these injuries. The seat rotates, the base rolls, and the gas lift can drop. There is no safe way to stand on one.
5. Do not stand on the top step or the tool tray.The same rule as a stepladder. The manufacturer marks the highest step for a reason and it is usually the second or third from the top.
6. Get the item to you rather than going to it.A grabber for a high shelf, a bulb changer on a pole for a high ceiling light, a long-handled duster. Removing the need to climb is better than climbing safely.
7. Tell someone if you are working at height alone.Particularly for anyone living alone or older. A fall from a step stool that leaves you unable to get up is a much worse situation if nobody knows.
8. Recognise the jobs that need more than a step.Ceilings, stairwells, loft hatches, anything over a stairwell and anything at eaves height need proper equipment, not a taller improvisation.

Tips

• A telescopic bulb changer on a pole handles most high ceiling lights from the floor and removes the highest-risk routine job in a house.
• For an older person, or anyone with reduced balance, a step stool with a full-height handrail is far better than a plain one and costs little more.
• The stairwell is the worst place in a house to work at height, because a fall there is a fall down the stairs. Anything above a stairwell needs a purpose-made stairwell platform.
• Store the step where the job happens — one in the kitchen, one on the landing — rather than one in the garage that never gets fetched.

Common mistakes

• Standing on a chair for a job that takes thirty seconds — The shortness of the job is the reason people do it and has no bearing on the consequence. Most domestic fall injuries happen during very short tasks.
• Standing on a worktop to reach a high cupboard — The climb up and down is the dangerous part, the surface is often wet or greasy, and there is nothing at all to hold once you are up there.
• Stacking something to gain a bit more height — Boxes, books, a crate on a step. Anything stacked is unstable under a shifting load and it fails suddenly.
• Standing on the bath edge to clean a window or a shower screen — Wet, sloped, slippery, surrounded by hard edges and glass. It is one of the highest-consequence falls that happens in a house.

Alternatives

• Kick stool or step stool: A single low step with a wide, stable base and a non-slip top. Cheap, light, stores in a cupboard, and covers everything from a high shelf to a smoke alarm. The kick-stool type with retracting castors locks down under your weight and is excellent in a kitchen.
• Two or three tread step stool: A small A-frame with two or three steps and often a handrail loop. The right tool for cupboards, curtain poles, ceiling lights and decorating, and it folds flat. This is what most people should own instead of using a chair.
• Small stepladder with a platform: For anything sustained — painting, wallpapering, fitting a light. A platform and a handrail lets you work comfortably for an hour rather than balancing for two minutes.
• A dining chair: Not suitable. The seat is designed for a static seated load spread over a wide area, not a person standing on one edge; the legs are usually splayed and jointed, and the seat height is above the point at which a fall causes serious injury. Upholstered seats also compress unevenly.
• A kitchen worktop: Not suitable. Climbing up involves an unstable transition, the surface is often slippery, there is nothing to hold, and coming down is worse than going up. Worktop overhangs and unsupported spans are not designed for a point load either.
• The edge of a bath or a shower tray: Genuinely dangerous. Wet, curved, slippery, above a hard surface, in a room full of hard edges and glass. This causes some of the worst domestic fall injuries there are.

Questions people ask