How do I make a garage or workshop safe with children in the house?

The risks in a workshop are not the ones people plan for. Children rarely start a mitre saw; they drink things, swallow things and pull things off shelves. So the controls that matter are about what is accessible and what is recognisable, not about tool guards — and the highest-priority items are the smallest.

Safety

Step by step

1. Start with the things that are swallowed.Button and coin cells are the highest-consequence item in a domestic workshop. Swallowed, they cause severe internal burns within a couple of hours. Keep them in a closed container, out of reach, and dispose of dead ones immediately rather than leaving them on a bench.
2. Never decant anything.White spirit in a lemonade bottle, screenwash in a squash bottle, fuel in a milk container. A child recognises the bottle and not the contents, and this is behind a large share of childhood poisonings. Everything stays in its original labelled container.
3. Lock the chemicals rather than raising them.A high shelf is a challenge, not a control, and children climb better and earlier than adults expect. A cheap lockable cupboard or a hasp and padlock on an existing one is the answer, and it costs very little.
4. Take the batteries out of the tools.A cordless tool with a battery in it is a live tool. Removing the pack when you finish takes two seconds, makes the tool inert, and is good for the battery as well. Store the packs separately and out of reach.
5. Isolate the power.Unplug corded tools and coil the leads so nothing can be switched on and nothing dangles. If the space has a lockable isolator switch, use it. Trailing leads are also the most likely thing to be tripped over.
6. Put blades away every time.Chisels, knives, planes, saw blades, spare blades in packets, and the multi-tool blade still in the tool. A drawer or a rack with a door, not a magnetic strip at child height.
7. Fix the storage to the wall.Racking and shelving pull over when climbed on or hung from, and workshop shelving is usually loaded with heavy things. Brackets into masonry or into studs, on everything tall.
8. Store the ladder flat and locked.A ladder leaning against a wall is an invitation, and it is also a way for a child to reach everything you put on a high shelf. Store it horizontally on brackets and consider a ladder lock.
9. Clean up before they come in.Sweep or vacuum offcuts, screws and nails off the floor and the bench, and let fine dust settle and the space ventilate. A workshop immediately after a job is the least safe it ever is.
10. Lock the door.The simplest and most reliable control of all. A workshop that cannot be entered unsupervised removes the need for every other control to work perfectly.
11. Involve older children deliberately.Supervised use of hand tools, with eye protection, teaches respect for the space far better than a blanket ban does. The rules that stick are the ones learned by doing the job properly.

Tips

• Keep the number for your local A&E and the packaging of anything hazardous somewhere findable. In an ingestion emergency, knowing exactly what was swallowed changes the treatment.
• Fuel, gas cylinders and large quantities of solvent should not be stored in an integral garage attached to the house at all, for fire reasons as much as for children.
• Magnets are the other small item worth locking away. More than one swallowed magnet can pinch the bowel between them and it is a surgical emergency.
• A cheap camera or a door alarm on a detached workshop tells you if the door has been opened, which is useful for both children and thieves.

Common mistakes

• Putting hazards on a high shelf instead of locking them away — Height is defeated by a chair, a step or a bench, all of which are in the room. Locks are not.
• Decanting solvents or fuel into drinks containers — It is the mechanism behind a very large proportion of serious childhood poisonings, and the container is what the child responds to.
• Leaving batteries in cordless tools — A tool with the battery in is a tool that will run. It takes two seconds to remove and it is the single easiest control in the workshop.
• Assuming a child is not interested in the workshop — It is the most interesting room in the house, and it is usually the least supervised.

Checklist

• Button and coin cells stored in a locked box, and dead ones disposed of immediately
• Cordless tool batteries removed from tools and stored out of reach
• All chemicals, fuels and solvents in a locked cupboard, in original labelled containers
• Nothing whatsoever decanted into a drinks bottle, jar or cup
• Blades, chisels and knives in a closed drawer or a locked cupboard
• Power tools unplugged, leads coiled, and a lockable isolator if there is one
• Nail guns and their cartridges locked away separately
• Nothing heavy stored high where it can be pulled down
• Shelving and racking fixed to the wall
• Ladders stored flat and secured, not leaning where they can be climbed
• Sharp offcuts, screws and nails swept up rather than left on the bench
• Fine dust cleaned up and the space ventilated before children come in
• Door to the workshop or garage lockable, and locked when you are not in it

Questions people ask