TECHNICAL BULLETIN

The Engineering and Sciences Division of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has compiled the following time-temperature burn chart (based on the 1946 Harvard studies of Moritz and Henriques under Department of Defense contract). The chart shows the exposure times, under circumstances of full immersion, that will result in superficial, and partial or full-thickness, scald burns at various water temperatures. 

Water Temperature ° F Vs. Time for 1st Time for Degree Burn Vs Time for Permanent Burns, 2nd and 3rd Degree

• 110° F - (normal shower temp)
• 116° F (pain threshold)
• 116° F - 35 minutes - 45 minutes
• 122° F - 1 minute - 5 minutes
• 131° F - 5 seconds - 25 seconds
• 140° F - 2 seconds - 5 seconds
• 149° F - 1 second - 2 seconds
• 154° F - instantaneous - 1 second 

(U.S. Government Memorandum, C.P.S.C., Peter L. Armstrong, Sept. 15, 1978)

Tap water scald injuries, particularly to young children (and the elderly and infirm), occur nationally with sufficient frequency and with such catastrophic results to be a foreseeable hazard of great concern.

Surface Temperature in the Causation of Cutaneious Burns, 23 American Journal of Pathology 147 (1046); Henriques, “Study of Thermal Injury V: The Predictability and the Significance of Thermally Induced Rate Processes Leading to Irreversible Epidermal Injury,” 1946 Archives of Pathology 489.