Thank you First Alert for sponsoring this post on home safety tips.
October is Fire Prevention Month, and it is the perfect time to make sure you have checked off First Alert’s Whole Home Safety Checklist. We have 3 little ones in our house, and we want to make sure that not only do we have the right fire safety products in our home, but we know how to use them, how often to check them, and what else we can do to help keep our family safe in the event of a fire.
5 Home Safety Tips
1.) Install smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarms on every level and in every bedroom of your home. If you have a 2-story house, you will want to install them on both levels. All levels, all bedrooms. A fire can start anywhere at any time!Β
2.) Test your alarms regularly to help ensure they are working properly. We test all of ours once a month just to ensure that each one is still working. If it isn’t working, try adding new batteries and see if that works. If it doesn’t, replace your non-working alarm.
3.) Β Change the batteries in your alarms at least every six months. Twice a year, throw those old batteries away and put new ones in your smoke alarms. You will want to do this for every alarm in every bedroom, on every level.
For convenient protection, upgrade to 10-year sealed battery alarms to eliminate the need for battery replacements. We installed in our new home a Combination Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarm with 10-Year Sealed Battery.
4.) Alarms donβt last forever and should be replaced at least every 10 years. When replacing, upgrade to 10-year sealed battery alarms for convenient protection.
We recently installed a Combination Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarm with 10-Year Sealed Battery and love that we can know and trust that our alarm is new and works, it has a 10-year battery, and it alerts us to both smoke and CO in our home.
5.) Plan and practice a fire escape plan with your family. Draw a map of your home and identify 2 exits out of each room. Designate an outside meeting spot a safe distance away from your home (tree, mailbox, neighbor’s house, etc.) Once you are out of your home, stay outside and call 9-1-1 when you are at your meeting spot.
Did you know that 3 out of 5 home fire deaths occur in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms? That means that more often than not home fire deaths can be prevented by having working smoke alarms in them. A fire department responds to fire once every 23 seconds. The #1 cause of home fires is unattended cooking, so make sure you have an extinguisher within reach (Source: National Fire Protection Association.)
The Importance of Fire Extinguishers
Fire extinguishers should be placed on every level of the home in common places like the kitchen. Other areas include the laundry room, garage, and grill. We have 5Β Rechargeable Home Fire Extinguishers at our home – 1 in our kitchen, our laundry room, our patio, our garage, and our family room upstairs.
Our 5 fire extinguishers at our house are lightweight, which makes them easy for anyone to use in a common household fire. Make sure you know how to use a fire extinguisher also. An easy way to remember how to use a fire extinguisher is with the acronym P.A.S.S.
1.) P – Pull the pin.
2.) A – Aim the nozzle at the base of the fire.
3.) S – Squeeze the trigger.
4.) S – Sweep from side to side.
Don’t wait until it is too late. Now is a perfect time while the seasons are changing, and we are going from room to room to decorate for fall and holidays. Check your smoke alarms, batteries, and fire extinguishers, and add reliable protection to your home with First Alert products. You can find them at Lowe’s. Have you practiced a fire escape plan with your family? When is the last time you changed out your smoke alarms and batteries?
3 of them were expired in my house.
Had something burning inside my microwave the other day; smoke was everywhere and none of them went off on 1* floor.
Replaced every single one in the house.
thanks.