Fireproofing Your Home

by - 7/18/2017 10:56:00 AM



If you’ve ever experienced a fire, you know just how quickly it can spread. The last place in the world you would like to see burst into flames is your home, and keeping it free from any fire hazards should be your number one priority. It is, after all, where you’re supposed to be at your safest. With these simple precautions, you can guard your home against damage and keep your family safe and sound.

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Image source: Pexels


Candles and Kitchen

Most fires start at home and mainly in the kitchen. It’s no wonder, really; you cook, handle the heat, and bake dishes at hundreds of degrees in the kitchen, and it makes sense to treat this area with as much caution as possible. No food should be cooked unattended - especially not by your children.

Talk to the youngest members of the household about common reasons behind house fire and tell them to let a grown-up know immediately if there are any matched or lighters lying around. Children are used to flames and don’t always realize the potential it has for damage - as much imagination as they have, it’s not always easy to connect the little flame at the tip of a match or a candle with a raging house fire.

It’s your responsibility as a parent to make sure that no ignition material is floating about, as well as never allowing a live fire to go on unattended. Tell your children to treat their friend’s house the same way and let their parents know if a box of matches is found within reach.

Fire Extinguisher and Smoke Alarms

You should ensure that every room has a functioning fire extinguisher. When a spark turns into a fire, the first thing you’ll turn to in panic is anything that can suffocate the flames - and the extinguisher is your best friend in this situation. Most people keep one in the kitchen, but you should have one handy in each room of the house. Remember the basement, attic, and garage as well. These rooms tend to be overlooked, which is strange as a lot of flammable material tends to be stored in these places.

Make a note of the expiry date of your fire extinguishers too; you don’t want to squirt out a bit of useless and liquid foam when you need it the most. Replace or refill these in time, as well as ensuring your alarms by performing smoke alarm testing from time to time - around every fourth month should do. Your smoke alarms play the biggest role in notifying you about a potential fire, and you need to maintain them to make sure they’re working as they should.

Fireproof Furniture?

Besides from educating your young children on fire safety and ensuring that your home has a sufficient amount of extinguishers and alarms, there is a lot more you can do to fireproof it.
The next time you replace an old piece of furniture or remove a stained carpet, consider investing in a fireproof coating. It keeps a potential fire from spreading if something should happen, and your family will have more routes to escape from where the fire hasn’t reached. Ask the store manager to help you with this, as well as curtains and other fabrics.

In case you’re not planning on replacing any of your furniture quite yet, but would still like to fireproof your home as much as possible, you can simply coat it with a fireproofing spray. It protects the material from stains, too, so there’s no downside to this at all.

Fire loves synthetic carpeting and wool. If it starts in your home and spread to these carpets, you can kiss the rest of the room goodbye. Fire resistant carpeting is a thing these days for a good reason; it prevents the fire from spreading and ensures the safety of your family. They come in an array of great-looking patterns and colors, by the way, so don’t let anything stop you from being as safe as possible.

The Family Escape Route

They practice fire drills at least twice a year at your children’s schools, and it would be strange not to think about their safety at home. Children tend to be left unattended at home where they’re supposed to be at their safest; at most fires started by young children occur in the middle of their own bedroom.

You need to have an escape route ready and remember to practice it; at least two exits should be available from each room, everybody stays low on the ground to inhale safe air, and if a garment is to catch fire, we stop, drop, and roll.

Most of what you can do to fireproof your home is to apply common sense to everything you do. Don’t overload your electrical wiring and keep matches out of the reach of young children; it makes so much sense that it’s easy to forget about it sometimes. However, the potential for a raging fire is too high to forget about it, so keep these safety tips in mind at all times.



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