Home fires are the sort of events that you always assume happen to other people. It’s not that you think you’re immune so much as it is that it hasn’t happened yet and you have faith in what your track record is saying. You must be pretty good at this whole home safety business, right? For anyone seeking residential fire alarms in Dover, DE, or for anyone else just wanting to double check that their home is in order, here are a few safety tips to help prevent home fires.
Cook with Care
This may seem obvious, but ask yourself the last time you left something frying in the kitchen for one reason or another. Maybe you had to go downstairs and switch your laundry? It only took a few minutes, right? The leading cause of home fires is when homeowners leave something cooking on the stove, get distracted, and forget about it. It may seem harmless, but it’s not.
Help Your Heater
In the wintertime, the leading cause of home fires shifts to your home heating system—especially portable space heaters. The trouble happens when, say, a low-hanging drape rests on top of the heater while it burns, or a sheet falls off of someone’s bed and on top of the space heater. That’s a recipe for a fire and a reason for good fire detection systems in Dover, DE.
Caution, Smokers
For anyone who is a smoker, hopefully you’ve heard all the warnings and read all the labels about how smoking is dangerous for you and can be harmful to others. From a homeowner’s perspective, it’s encouraged that you not smoke in your home so that it doesn’t devalue the property. The smell can linger, after all. It’s also a safety hazard, as a stray ash can be the spark that ignites the flame.
Electric Check
If you’re having electrical issues in a specific part of your home and the breaker doesn’t fix it, that may be a result of electric wires that are frayed or damaged in that section of wall. Overall, wires in this condition can easily spark a home fire.
Test Your Fire Alarm
This is an easy safety measure. If your alarm is struggling, all you need are a few AA batteries to set it right again, and having a working fire safety system in Dover, DE, can help you keep a threat to your home from becoming a dangerous blaze.
Have an Exit Plan
Especially for homes with little ones, it’s important to review your home exit plan in the case of a fire, so that kids know where you’re going to meet on the lawn. Pick a tree on the front lawn or the mailbox at the end of the driveway as your meeting spot, and make sure that everyone knows it.
Home fires can be scary, but making sure that your residential fire systems in Dover,, DE, are functional can be a safeguard against any missteps in these other safety areas.