'Appliances Home Alone (safely)' was how the release was headed up and although my first thought was that I'd be preaching to the converted by mentioning it here, my subsequent realisation that I'd not got around to registering my fridge freezer - purchased several months back - despite it still carrying a large orange sticker on the front suggesting that I do so immediately, made me change my mind.

The London Fire Brigade's warning that at least one of the fires tackled each day in the UK involves white goods, should be ringing alarm bells with us all - especially when one considers that in 90% of cases, the cause was a fault in the appliance or its electrical supply rather than human behaviour! 

Luckily many of these fires are extinguished before too much harm is done, but the Grenfell tower block fire - reportedly started when an appliance exploded - shows how important it is that we become less complacent about the potential failure of these items and more switched on about safety.

I was horrified to learn from a YouGov survey that almost 32% of us would continue to use white goods even if they started making strange noises, (even I wouldn't do that!). I wasn't surprised though that 70% had never checked whether their white goods were the subject of a product recall. The news that 27% of those said that they hadn't checked because they wouldn't know where to find the information, bothers me. Are we as an industry doing enough to get the message across, I wonder?

Also - and more worryingly, the figures show that despite a substantial reduction in household fires (13% between 2011 and 2015) the number of blazes involving white goods has dropped just 5% during the same period. Maths has never been my good point but doesn't that mean that a higher percentage of fires is now down to a faulty appliance, rather than other causes? 

The Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances, which issued the press release I mentioned earlier, suggests that with the holidays upon us and many of us going away, we should register our appliances to ensure that we don't miss out on any vital product safety repairs or product recall information. All it takes is a look around your kitchen and a visit to www.registermyappliance.org.uk I'm going to do it now...