Aging Gas Pipes at Risk of Explosion Nationwide
Showing posts with label Fire Safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fire Safety. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 14
Can It Happen Here?
Aging Gas Pipes at Risk of Explosion Nationwide
Saturday, February 21
Fire Safety
Let's talk about a FALSE sense of security when it comes to Fire protection for your family and home!
Frequently we'll hear someone, sometimes even ourselves, say "Well that'll be good enough!" The question is - is "GOOD ENOUGH" truly acceptable? Maybe sometimes it is but when it comes to emergency preparedness....hmmmmmmmm!!!!
I've always been very secure - maybe even a little smug - in the fact that I always keep fresh batteries in the smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in key spots. We even have emergency evacuation maps. But recently we attended a presentation with some neighbors about life saving devices. 2 days later the young man came to do an inspection of our house and help us learn how to make it safer. This is what we found out:
Yes I had fire extinguishers BUT did you know they only last for maybe 2 yrs and then need to be replaced? Also, every 6 months you should shake them up really well or they solidify in the bottom of the tank and it will do no good! If that has happened to you (you can feel that it's bottom heavy) take a rubber mallot ($1.95 at Walmart) and just pound on the bottom to loosen them up. Extinguishers with a plastic top, break, melt in the heat and cannot be refilled! Be sure your's has a metal top and an ABC rating (the right type for the kind of fire you would have in that space).
Smoke detectors need to be replaced every 2 years and the batteries should be replaced every 6 months! I never knew that! The success rate of an alarm sounding at the right time is 30%. (This is for those little round beige ones that most homes have.) To increase your family's chances of living through a fire - get a better quality alarm! The ones that are installed in houses as they are built are the cheapest possible and of course the lowest quality! Anyway, if your alarms have yellowed - they are way too old to be hanging there! Our online research brought us to Masterguard Brand and First Alert. There are big differences in the prices of the 2 brands but both offer high quality systems. Do a little research to decide what works for your home! Both of these products can be found at places like EBay and Amazon.
In our home we have discussed fire escape plans - But even more important than that is to actually do a mock drill - repeatedly - so that everyone knows automatically what to do. Once a fire starts in the home - it sucks the oxygen out of all open rooms and the brain becomes impaired in a matter of minutes! Sometimes the victim just can't think clearly so the chances of survival are better if you can kick into auto pilot. Be sure to have a meeting place outside so that everyone is accounted for! As we watched this informative presentation, we decided right then and there to do mock drills on the first Monday family meeting of every month! We don't want to lose any of our family members because we failed to do such an easy thing!
A few more things.....
- You should have at least 1 carbon monoxide alarm on each floor of your house.
- Appliances that aren't being used but are still plugged in CAN cause a fire! toasters, hairdryers etc
- Lava lamps are dangerous - they really heat up.
- The #1 room of the house for fires is the kitchen. #2 is the bedroom because of TV's. The dust that collects in a TV is extremely flammable - never cover up the vents and dust them out frequently.
- If you use a power strip - hang it on the wall. Dry wall will catch fire slower than carpet....
- Keep the lint traps clean on your dryer.
- If you have a ceiling fan in your room, hang the smoke alarm away from it. The fan will just blow the smoke away and defeat the purpose of the alarm. Also - if you're going to install a fan be sure that you're not overloading the wiring!
I hope this has been helpful to everyone. We really learned alot about what we were doing wrong. It concerned us enough to take action. New, better quality alarms are being installed at our house this weekend! Fire extinguishers have already been replaced!
Please take a little time to fireproof your family's lives!
Frequently we'll hear someone, sometimes even ourselves, say "Well that'll be good enough!" The question is - is "GOOD ENOUGH" truly acceptable? Maybe sometimes it is but when it comes to emergency preparedness....hmmmmmmmm!!!!
I've always been very secure - maybe even a little smug - in the fact that I always keep fresh batteries in the smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in key spots. We even have emergency evacuation maps. But recently we attended a presentation with some neighbors about life saving devices. 2 days later the young man came to do an inspection of our house and help us learn how to make it safer. This is what we found out:
Yes I had fire extinguishers BUT did you know they only last for maybe 2 yrs and then need to be replaced? Also, every 6 months you should shake them up really well or they solidify in the bottom of the tank and it will do no good! If that has happened to you (you can feel that it's bottom heavy) take a rubber mallot ($1.95 at Walmart) and just pound on the bottom to loosen them up. Extinguishers with a plastic top, break, melt in the heat and cannot be refilled! Be sure your's has a metal top and an ABC rating (the right type for the kind of fire you would have in that space).
Smoke detectors need to be replaced every 2 years and the batteries should be replaced every 6 months! I never knew that! The success rate of an alarm sounding at the right time is 30%. (This is for those little round beige ones that most homes have.) To increase your family's chances of living through a fire - get a better quality alarm! The ones that are installed in houses as they are built are the cheapest possible and of course the lowest quality! Anyway, if your alarms have yellowed - they are way too old to be hanging there! Our online research brought us to Masterguard Brand and First Alert. There are big differences in the prices of the 2 brands but both offer high quality systems. Do a little research to decide what works for your home! Both of these products can be found at places like EBay and Amazon.
In our home we have discussed fire escape plans - But even more important than that is to actually do a mock drill - repeatedly - so that everyone knows automatically what to do. Once a fire starts in the home - it sucks the oxygen out of all open rooms and the brain becomes impaired in a matter of minutes! Sometimes the victim just can't think clearly so the chances of survival are better if you can kick into auto pilot. Be sure to have a meeting place outside so that everyone is accounted for! As we watched this informative presentation, we decided right then and there to do mock drills on the first Monday family meeting of every month! We don't want to lose any of our family members because we failed to do such an easy thing!
A few more things.....
- You should have at least 1 carbon monoxide alarm on each floor of your house.
- Appliances that aren't being used but are still plugged in CAN cause a fire! toasters, hairdryers etc
- Lava lamps are dangerous - they really heat up.
- The #1 room of the house for fires is the kitchen. #2 is the bedroom because of TV's. The dust that collects in a TV is extremely flammable - never cover up the vents and dust them out frequently.
- If you use a power strip - hang it on the wall. Dry wall will catch fire slower than carpet....
- Keep the lint traps clean on your dryer.
- If you have a ceiling fan in your room, hang the smoke alarm away from it. The fan will just blow the smoke away and defeat the purpose of the alarm. Also - if you're going to install a fan be sure that you're not overloading the wiring!
I hope this has been helpful to everyone. We really learned alot about what we were doing wrong. It concerned us enough to take action. New, better quality alarms are being installed at our house this weekend! Fire extinguishers have already been replaced!
Please take a little time to fireproof your family's lives!
Tuesday, November 18
Teaching Fire Safety
This week we held a family planning night on the topic of Fire Safety. I was impressed that the children were very attentive. I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that a year or 2 ago they had their air conditioner short out and catch on fire during the middle of the night. They remember watching the firefighters working on that fire and are still filled with a sense of gratitude toward those men.
This meeting was so successful! We made up a drawing of our house floor plan, both upstairs and down, and then discussed what possible evacuation routes we could take. We also discussed:
- What the smoke detector sounds like.
- How to feel the door to learn if there is fire on the other side.
- How to yell "FIRE FIRE FIRE" as we evacuate and even practiced yelling.
- How to climb out of a window-well if needed or drop down from an upstairs window.
- Crawling on the floor to evacuate if there's smoke AND WHY.
- We chose a MEETING place outside of our home!!!
- We practiced Stop, Drop and Roll. Even our 2 yr old got to try it and loved it.
- We talked about where we keep our Fire Extinguishers and actually practiced using an extinguisher - putting out a bush in the yard (Papa wouldn't let us have an actual fire!).
- We've posted the evacuation plan on each floor where we'll be reminded frequently.
During the upcoming weeks we'll put a match to the smoke alarms and have actual practice drills when everyone is at home and at different times of the day so if you see us in our front yard in our PJ's - you'll know why. Of course we finished off the night with ice cream topped with berries - yummmm! It was a memorable evening.
I wish I could explain the sense of peace that we are feeling in knowing that we have talked about this as a family. We will repeat this discussion every few months. It's such a simple thing to do, costs no money, and takes very little time BUT it brings such a reassurance knowing that it may save the lives of our loved ones in the future. We hope that every household in our neighborhood will have this same meeting in your own homes. When you do, please let us know how it went and if you learned anything new by doing so. We can learn from each other!
After the first of the year, we will be having a little training class with our very own neighborhood fireman teaching us a few fire safety rules. We'll let you know when that is and hope that you will attend so that you can take the information back to your own families.
This meeting was so successful! We made up a drawing of our house floor plan, both upstairs and down, and then discussed what possible evacuation routes we could take. We also discussed:
- What the smoke detector sounds like.
- How to feel the door to learn if there is fire on the other side.
- How to yell "FIRE FIRE FIRE" as we evacuate and even practiced yelling.
- How to climb out of a window-well if needed or drop down from an upstairs window.
- Crawling on the floor to evacuate if there's smoke AND WHY.
- We chose a MEETING place outside of our home!!!
- We practiced Stop, Drop and Roll. Even our 2 yr old got to try it and loved it.
- We talked about where we keep our Fire Extinguishers and actually practiced using an extinguisher - putting out a bush in the yard (Papa wouldn't let us have an actual fire!).
- We've posted the evacuation plan on each floor where we'll be reminded frequently.
During the upcoming weeks we'll put a match to the smoke alarms and have actual practice drills when everyone is at home and at different times of the day so if you see us in our front yard in our PJ's - you'll know why. Of course we finished off the night with ice cream topped with berries - yummmm! It was a memorable evening.
I wish I could explain the sense of peace that we are feeling in knowing that we have talked about this as a family. We will repeat this discussion every few months. It's such a simple thing to do, costs no money, and takes very little time BUT it brings such a reassurance knowing that it may save the lives of our loved ones in the future. We hope that every household in our neighborhood will have this same meeting in your own homes. When you do, please let us know how it went and if you learned anything new by doing so. We can learn from each other!
After the first of the year, we will be having a little training class with our very own neighborhood fireman teaching us a few fire safety rules. We'll let you know when that is and hope that you will attend so that you can take the information back to your own families.
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