Checking that the range has its anti-tip bracket

A freestanding range can tip forward when someone stands on the open oven door, leans on it or puts something heavy on it. Hot food and liquid come with it. From 1980 through 2008, 38 deaths were reported from range tipovers, more than half of them children aged one to five. Most of the injuries were burns from hot liquids spilling off a tilting range.

Since 1991, new ranges have come with an anti-tip bracket. It's usually a fork-shaped piece of metal fastened where the floor meets the wall behind the range, and one of the range's back legs slides into it. Some are a bracket fastened to the wall instead. Brackets take their own installation step, which is easy to skip.

What you need

• A flashlight
• The range's owner's manual, if you have it

Steps

1. 1

   Clear and cool the range

   Take everything off the top of the range and out of the oven. Make sure the oven, the cooktop and the bottom drawer are cool before you put your hands on it.

   2 min

2. 2

   Look without moving it

   Pull the bottom drawer all the way out. Shine the flashlight under the range toward the back. You should see the back feet, and one of them should sit in the bracket. If there's no bracket under it, shine the light down behind the range for a bracket on the wall.

   3 min

3. 3

   Slide it out a little, if you need to

   If you still can't tell, carefully slide the range about 3 inches away from the wall and look behind it from both sides for a bracket on the floor or wall. When you slide it back, make sure one rear leg goes into the floor bracket, or the back of the range lines up with the wall bracket. For a gas range, have an appliance service technician do this.

   5 min

4. 4

   Try to tilt it

   Grasp the back of the range and try to tilt it toward you. If it tilts more than an inch, it isn't engaged in the bracket or the bracket isn't attached properly. If you're not comfortable doing this, have an authorized appliance service technician check it.

   2 min

5. 5

   Get a missing bracket installed

   If the bracket is missing or not working, get it fixed. For a range made after 1991, ask the appliance retailer, the property manager or the builder to install the anti-tip device, or ask the range maker for a replacement bracket and instructions. Some makers send one at no charge. For a range made before 1991, ask the maker whether it offers a retrofit device.

   3 min

Around the range

• Keep children out of the kitchen unless someone is watching them, and turn pot handles in toward the back of the range.
• Move cookie jars and other things children want away from the range, so no one uses the open oven door as a step.
• Don't put heavy food or other things on an open oven door.
• Don't push down on an open oven door, or lean on it to stand up.

Anchoring furniture and TVs against tip-overs covers the rest of the house.