Does your oven range have an anti-tip bracket installed?

​Anti-tip brackets are typically inexpensive small pieces of stamped sheet metal screwed to the floor and/or wall designed to prevent freestanding oven ranges from tipping over. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) between 1980 and 2006 there were 143 incidents caused by free-standing oven range tip-overs. Of those, 33 resulted in death, with most of those small children. Small children may want to stand on an open range door to see what is cooking or to get to something on the counter that they want. The elderly have also been prone to injury, often involving accidental falls while attempting to clean the oven.

Due to the findings of the CPSC, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) created standards in 1991 that require free-standing over ranges to remain stable while supporting 250 pounds of weight on their open doors. The manufacturers generally meet this standard with an anti-tip or anti-tilt device that secures one leg of the range to the floor, while still allowing for easy slide-out of the range for servicing. Manufacturers have been including these devices with their unit packaging with instructions for how they are to be installed since the 1990’s, but many installers either do not read the instructions or just skip the anti-tip device installation.

​You can check you range by simply sliding it out of its location and looking for a bracket. If an anti-tip bracket is missing, you should be able to order one through your local hardware store for popular range models or get one online directly from the range manufacturer for around $10 to $20, plus tax and shipping.  Installation is relatively straight-forward for a handy homeowner or handyman, and well worth doing for home safety.