Kelly wants to know how to childproof a tricky piece of kitchen gear — the water cooler.
There are many that have safety locks on the hot water tap, but that still leaves the cold tap available to beckon to any mischievous toddler. My Google-fu is failing me, so I thought I’d turn to the experts…any suggestions from the Parent Hacks group?
Experts indeed! Anyone know how to childproof a water dispenser?
Related: Kid-friendly chilled water dispenser
My parents use Ozarka water and they provided them with safety latches that snap onto the hot and cold water spouts. They are easy to use and keep the kids from making a mess with the water. Not sure if all companies have them, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
I mentioned the problem to our water supplier and they just gave me another hot water tap. I just pulled the blue off and added another red. We just remember that cold is on the right and hot is on the left.
I don’t have a hack, but it did bring back a childhood memory. My grandma had a water spout in the door of her refrigerator that she would never use but we thought was fun. My brother was using it and it got stuck to the on position. There was water all over the kitchen before they fixed it. It’s definitely worth child proofing these things.
John’s suggestion above was exactly what I was going to recommend. Google “water cooler faucet” to find a red locking one to replace your blue non-locking one. You might even find a white or blue locking one.
Here are some 3rd party spiggots or covers, not sure which.
http://www.amazon.com/Tomlinson-Touch-Guard-Child-Faucet/dp/B000LY164O
A friend of mine just unplugged her cooler and deactivated the cold side.I don’t know how she did it. Now we drink room temp water which is fine and use the microwave to make it hot if needed. Simple but effective.
I hate to be the nay-sayer here, but isn’t getting hot and cold water confused a little more dangerous than a little water spilled on the floor?
my son will stand at the water cooler all day pouring out literally gallons so it’s not just a little water on the floor
Agreed fellow nay-sayer! But i was thinking that it would probably be completely free to just grab an extra locking red one from your supplier. The trick now, that i thought of, is just paint the dang thing!! 😛 A quick trip to wallmart and you can find yourself some of that plastic spray paint stuff and it will be on there for a long time.
We have this same problem at my in-laws so what we do is put it the cooler in the corner and turned it around so only we can get to the water. It works, but exposes the back part of the cooler – luckily our curious toddler doesn’t touch this!
We have the same problem but we came up with a quick solution. I just put tape on the dispenser with the sticky side out. It took just one touch and he won’t touch it anymore – my 17 month old just doesn’t like the feel. We have done this on multiple items when traveling to non-baby proof locations. It is a simple and easy fix to keep curious hands off items. Just travel with a roll of tape.
We have a solution no one mentioned! Using the Red one on both sides doesn’t work because our little ones figured out in a day how to push in and then down.
Buy the “stove knob covers” (google this), and put them over the water spigot. One more step to get to water, but well worth it. We also turn off the heat from the back, but the knob covers prevent a wet floor.