Firefighters are urging people to take a few minutes to register their large household appliances so they have a record in case a safety repair is ever needed.

Supporting Register My Appliance Day today , Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service is keen to remind local residents to visit registermyappliance.org.uk to register the appliances they rely on every day to handle essential chores such as chilling and cooking food for their families.

Prevention delivery manager Ian Hopkins said it was never too late for this important safety precaution.

“We know that appliances are kept for many years and very few people realise that they can register older models. These are the products that are most difficult to trace if a safety repair is ever needed and only their current owners can let manufacturers know that they have them,” he said.

In a small number of cases, manufacturers may identify problems with a model once the product has been in use for some time.

They then need to contact owners to get the fault corrected as quickly as possible. Normally a quick in-home fix by a qualified technician will remove any risk, but it can be very difficult to trace customers, particularly if they purchased some time ago.

Fewer than a third of these large white goods are registered when they were purchased, and many leading manufacturers are offering prize draws or incentives to encourage owners to get their older fridges, freezers, washing machines, dryers and cooking appliances on record.

New research published today by the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances (AMDEA) has looked specifically at multiple-ownership, where one, or up to four, of each type of appliance is in use in a home.

The Register My Appliance web portal, is a safety initiative designed by AMDEA to make it quicker and easier to register over sixty leading brands of appliances, directly with the manufacturer.

When respondents considered a list of nine actions that they ever take to ensure the safety of their home, making sure appliances are registered with the manufacturer rubbed along the bottom, at number eight, second only to using security cameras.

Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service hope to help the local community understand why getting their appliances on record is a New Year’s resolution worth keeping.