School Design Details: Best Wall Plate Covers for Safety

The Government takes the protection of employees from exposure to live electrical parts very seriously. In fact, so seriously that laws are governing the standards to which your outlets and even wall plate covers should be installed. It is with the same care that we should protect our school children from electrical outlets.

Improving School Safety with the Best Wall Plate Covers

Electricity is a big part of our day to day lives. Without it, almost every industry would not function optimally. When it comes to how much electricity is needed to smoothly run our schools and even homes; places where our kids live and often play unsupervised, the dangers of poorly installed and managed electrical outlets become very apparent.

By nature, children are very curious. This is demonstrated by how they often find themselves in awkward positions trying to climb things that they shouldn’t. Thanks to this curiosity, it is inevitable that they would want to stick things in open electrical outlets. Sometimes these things happen to be their wet fingers, metallic spoons, keys and an assortment of toys.

School children, on the other hand, need electricity and these outlets to facilitate their learning. In an average classroom, there are projectors and other audio/visual equipment including intercom services, LED lighting and even smart screens to help the teachers pass their message across. All of this equipment requires electrical outlets.

But just because these outlets are there to help these kids learn doesn’t mean that they will not try to use them for their own amusement or mischief. Therefore, it is imperative to install the best wall plate covers for school safety in every classroom, hallway, break room and all around the other areas of the school that are accessible by the students.

Safety Proofing Electrical Wall Plates

Trying to ensure that a school remains safe from an electrical accident by proofing the outlets is only a temporary solution. One that will only work for Kindergarteners or lower grade school children. Once they get older, children can easily figure out how to get around whatever proofing mechanisms you may have in place.

What we are trying to do here is to ensure that the outlets aren’t as ‘enticing’ as they usually are when bare and naked.

An open outlet is very much an open invitation to stick something into it and possibly get shocked. The National Fire Protection Association says that about 2,400 school age going children suffer severe burns and shocks each year by simply poking electrical outlets or receptacles. More disturbingly though, about 12 children die from these injuries every year.

The Different Types of Outlets

No matter the design, there are two main types of receptacles:

• Regular electric receptacle: These receptacles have open vertical slots that are more than inviting for your kid to poke things into them
• Tamper resistant receptacle: These have spring-loaded shutters that need to be pushed simultaneously to expose the openings that lead to the contacts

The second kind of outlet is more advisable since it is a little more bothersome to operate and school going children easily get bored and will stop trying. The former, however, is easily accessible and needs to be proofed.

Best Wall Plate Covers for School Safety

Remember that school children are young and may not realize what they are doing at times.  Like toddlers, they are easily tempted by things they shouldn’t do either out of boredom or curiosity.

An empty electrical outlet is a deadly temptation that many students may not resist. Having something, even if it is a wall plate cover plugged into that outlet, will act as a deterrent that keeps them from sticking things into the openings and possibly receiving a threatening shock.

Thankfully, finding the right kind of covers for the electrical outlets in schools is a simple and affordable enough process to ensure that each and every child is safe when studying and learning in class.

Electrical Outlet Caps

Electrical outlet caps are the most affordable and fastest way to proof your electrical outlets. Packets of child-proof electrical outlet caps work fine in a school setting. Made out of plastic, these covers can easily plug directly into the outlet and will effectively keep the opening sealed.

With the exposed front being entirely flat, most children will not be able to pry them open, and the fact that they are often the same color as the wall plate itself means that the electrical outlet can easily be mistaken for a solid plate that has no openings at all.

The biggest drawback with these electrical outlet caps is that a teacher will have to remove them every time they need to use the outlet. This presents a couple of problems:

• The teacher can easily forget to plug them back in once done with the outlet
• The students will quickly learn that they can be removed and do just that once the teacher leaves

The best electrical outlet caps can fit any GFCI outlets which makes them extremely convenient.

Electrical Outlet Covers

Also known as ‘safe plates’ these are outlet covers that simply sit on top of your electrical outlet. They act in the same way as the tamper-proof outlets do; wherein they have a spring-loaded plastic cover that keeps the openings shut and prevents school children from easily poking things into them.

This option is considerably safer than the typical outlet cap since the cover snaps back into place once the teacher unplugs whichever device he/she had plugged into the wall while teaching. As soon as these devices are unplugged, the wall plate snaps back into place and covers the openings again.

The added advantage here is that once these outlet covers are installed, the administration can simply forget about them and do not need to keep checking if they are plugged back in after use.

The trick is in finding the best wall plate covers for safety in a school setting. Wall plate covers such as the ones sold at Buyer’s Point are not only built to the highest possible quality standard but are also quite affordable, diverse and come in many different operating styles.