Investing in a fire safety system is one of the best investments a homeowner can make. It is an investment in your family’s comfort and an investment in their safety and security. Unfortunately, some people cannot afford full installation and maintenance of home security or life safety systems, for example, regular fire hydrant repairs. However, there are many things that homeowners can do to prevent fires before they even happen. Here are several basic home fire safety measures you can take today to help protect your loved ones from fire danger:
Install Smoke Alarms
Having a working smoke alarm is one of the basic home fire safety measures that can greatly improve your chances of surviving a house fire. Almost two-thirds of all residential fires occur during the night when people are asleep. In many cases, these fire damage claims could have been prevented by simply having a working smoke alarm in the home.
Smoke alarms may be one of the simplest ways homeowners can protect their families from death or injury resulting from a house fire. Smoke alarms are cheap, simple devices that make a loud noise when smoke is present. In theory, the sound of the alarm should be enough to wake someone from sleep and alert them to the danger of a fire, providing those inside with enough time to escape.
In practice, several obstacles may prevent this from taking place as intended. Many people have alarms in their homes but do not maintain them or test them regularly, for example, incorporating smoke alarm repair. As a result, many homeowners find themselves fumbling around in the dark if their alarm goes off while they are sleeping. Additionally, since victims of fires often die from toxic fumes instead of flames, someone can awaken and temporarily lose consciousness before they can get out of the house. The danger is increased if there are children or elderly in the home who may not respond quickly enough in an emergency.
There is also a danger that some family members may attempt to go back inside to save pets or important items that have been left behind, thus increasing their chances of death or injury in the process. For these reasons, having at least one smoke alarm on every level of your home and testing them monthly or calling on for fire alarm inspection can greatly improve your chances of survival should a fire break out when you are sleeping.
Don’t Leave the Kitchen While Something Is Cooking
Are you the type of person who is constantly distracted, forgetting what you were supposed to do three seconds after being told? Perhaps, then, it would be wise for you to adopt a ‘no distractions’ policy in your kitchen since it is one of the essential basic home fire systems.
The statistics are frightening. Every year around 25% of house fires begin in the kitchen, with cooking-related mishaps being responsible for roughly 50% of all home fires. If these numbers don’t serve as an incentive to take precautions while cooking, perhaps this will: 467 people die from unintentional scalding each year.
Homeowners can try not to leave the room if something is cooking on the stove or oven. This may seem simple and obvious enough, but many cooks make the mistake of leaving the kitchen to tend to other tasks. They might be checking something in the oven or cleaning up spilled ingredients, but many people end up making this a regular occurrence.
If you’re not sure whether it’s safe to leave your cooking alone, try waiting five minutes before popping out of the room. If you have everything under control after that amount of time, then it is probably okay to leave for a couple more minutes while you attend to some other task at hand. But if things are already starting to pop up on the stovetop or some smoke has billowed from an oven door left open too long, it is probably best you remain where you are until all danger has passed. This simple step can help lower your chances of burning down your house and having to undergo extra costs of calling in a fire restoration company after the mess has already occurred.
Make Sure Outlets Are Wired Correctly So They Don’t Overload Circuits
You probably would not want to forget this as one of the most essential basic home fire safety measures. Every year, it seems that we hear about more and more fires caused by faulty electrical wiring, most of which result in property damage and even death. For this case, everyone with a home should learn what to do if they suspect their outlets aren’t wired correctly and ensure they are.
You can do several simple checks to determine whether or not your electric outlets have been wired correctly. At the very least, you should know the basics of how electricity gets from a power source to your outlets. You can test if anyone’s outlet is overloaded by plugging in a lamp or other appliance and turning it on. If the circuit breaker trips, there is too much current going through that outlet, and something needs to be done. If the outlet itself feels warm to the touch, it might be because the voltage is leaking out and not being used, usually due to improperly installed wiring. However, if all of these things are happening simultaneously, especially if anything has caught fire, you need to call an electrician immediately.
Of course, electrical fires can ignite for any reason; overheated appliances, overloaded outlets, and even the use of power tools in wet conditions. The best way to protect yourself and your family is by having your outlets checked regularly during normal house improvements like kitchen remodeling.
Keep Combustible Materials Away From Heat Sources
Building fires are a devastating danger to people and property. When you’re building, modifying, or decorating your home, you must follow some basic home fire safety measures to protect yourself and those around you. One such step is to keep combustible materials away from heat sources.
Combustible materials burn easily and cause fires if they contact heat sources like open flames or electrical devices. They include wood, cotton, petroleum products (like paint), and even household chemicals like cleaning liquids and aerosols. So it’s important to be careful when working with these sorts of materials in the home to avoid fires or injury.
It’s important to take some simple precautions if you’re working with combustible materials in the home. For example, make sure that heat sources like ovens and radiators are turned off and seen before you start work, and ensure there is a fire-proof surface under all your work area (for example, a concrete floor). Always keep flammable products in clearly labeled, sealed containers away from food storage areas and remove anything containing flammable liquids from its container only when required for immediate use. Also, store rags or other items that might cause fires safely and always dispose of old paint by taking it back to the shop where it was purchased. These are important basic home fire safety measures to help keep you and your family safe.
Use Space Heaters Wisely
Ensuring wise use of space heaters is also one of the most important basic home fire safety measures. Space heaters are popular appliances that many homeowners use in their homes. They can also be a cause of house fires if they are not used correctly.
Space heaters should never be placed near combustible materials, including curtains, furniture, clothing, or bedding. Some space heaters come with an overheating protection device, which automatically shuts the heater off if it overheats. If this happens to you, turn off your space heater, check for any damage and replace the heating element before restarting the heater. A damaged heating element could start a fire. Never use your space heater near water. Never take your space heater outside to dry a room or to heat an unventilated area. If your space heater has a three-prong plug, only use it in a grounded outlet.
Moreover, a space heater should not be left on when you sleep or leave the house. If the room gets below 65° F, do not use a portable electric heater. Instead, get an oil-filled radiator, which holds its heat for several hours.
If you have any questions about whether or not you can safely use a space heater, consult your owner’s manual or the manufacturer. Besides, ensure that you have properly invested in fire safety equipment like a fire rated glass when using a space heater. It is also good to let your neighbors and friends know that you have a space heater. This way, if they see something, they should tell you about it to address it before it becomes a problem.
Check Wiring for Frayed Insulation Regularly
Insulation wiring is very similar to regular house wiring in many ways, but it also has some key differences. The insulation on the wires makes them more susceptible to damage and deterioration than typical house wiring that does not have any insulation covering it. Like the regular house wiring, you may be familiar with, the insulation wire is made of copper and contains a thin layer of plastic covering it to insulate and protect the wire.
Regular household electrical currents are alternating currents (AC) that flow back and forth through their circuits at 60 cycles per second. Underneath this thin plastic coating, however, insulation wire usually runs direct current (DC) due to its heavy use for powering things like hydrogen fuel cells. The benefit of this is that the wiring can be smaller because it doesn’t handle alternating currents.
The only downside of using insulation wire is that if it’s improperly installed or damaged in any way, it can cause a short circuit and lead to a fire leaving you with unexpected smoke damage cleanup. For example, if a tear or rip in the insulation exposes copper wire, there will be a direct connection between the loss and the ground. This type of wiring fault is very dangerous because if enough current flows through this circuit for long enough, everything around it starts to heat up quickly. As you may know from experience with working on electronics or appliances that get hot when they’re plugged into an outlet but not turned on (wait for at least 30 minutes after plugging in your computer to make sure it’s not hot), when something heats up quickly, it usually catches on fire. This is why it’s important for homeowners to regularly inspect their insulation wiring as one of the most basic home fire safety measures. Checking insulation wire can be done easily with a voltmeter to ensure that the circuit has no faults. If there are any uninterrupted paths between the positive and negative sides of the circuit, then there’s a problem.
Create a Fire Escape Plan
It’s a fact of life: fire happens. And while it might not happen to your home or business, you can’t control when and where a fire will start. To protect yourself and the people around you from dangerous fires, make up a plan for how to evacuate should a fire break out in your home or office building. It is simple and one of the most effective basic home fire safety measures. Here are some tips for developing an escape plan that everyone in your household can implement easily:
Know two ways out of every room, pick a meeting place for your family outside the house, and draw a map to show all escape routes from your home.
For each member of your household, try putting together an escape plan that accounts for everyone’s needs. Try to have several different plans just in case one fails. If you have pets, make sure they can get out too by always keeping them leashed or in a kennel/crate when not supervised. Always keep a phone close at hand so you can call 911 if needed, and don’t forget about people who might be visiting; ask them if they have an evacuation plan as well. Making this kind of plan can help to keep you safe should a fire ever break out. Although it’s not foolproof, making an escape plan for your home is one of the easiest and most effective basic home fire safety measures. Make sure that everyone in your family knows how to use the plan, so they’re ready if the time ever comes.
There are many reasons for accidents in the home including cooking accidents, poorly enclosing your fire pits, and electrical fires. It is important to know about these preventative basic home fire safety measures so that homeowners can ensure their families’ well-being. Not following these simple rules could result in severe injury or even the death of an innocent family member because of a preventable accident happening at home.