by Chris on May 14, 2010
Homes and businesses are always looking for ways to keep their employees and their property safe from fire. One of the ways homeowners and businesses can do this is by employing the services of one of the many home fire alarm monitoring companies available. Having home and auto insurance is also a good idea. You can never be too careful! There are a lot of different reasons this may be beneficial to your home or business and no two situations are the same.
One of the biggest reasons this service is beneficial is that is allows constant monitoring that your internal systems are functioning within the local fire code. If your home or business is heavy on internal systems that run all the time this monitoring is invaluable. And a lot of these fire alarm monitoring companies offer monthly upkeep for these systems as part of the contract. This will free up a lot of time that your employees don’t have to maintain the systems themselves.
"More than 3,500 Americans die each year in fires and approximately 18,300 are injured. An overwhelming number of fires occur in the home. There are time-tested ways to prevent and survive a fire. It's not a question of luck. It's a matter of planning ahead." -- U.S. Fire Administration
Any fire alarm monitoring company you choose will also allow you to keep up to date on any upgrades and enhancements you can get for your monitoring system. As an example, take a look at the latest systems from ADT at besthomesecurity.com, you’ll notice the ADT pulse allows you to control your system from your phone, which is becoming common in other systems too. These enhancements are always in addition to notification of local fire and police departments if something is wrong. The company will be able to pinpoint the location of the fire and notify the appropriate authorities even if you are at home asleep.
If a fire should occur during business hours then the company and management will have set out an escape plan for every possible area of the building. This plan can be practiced in fire drills regularly to ensure that you and your employees are safe. This practice alone can go miles in keeping people safe if something unexpected happens.
It is important to get quotes from fire alarm monitoring companies before you decide which one to contract with. But you should also take into consideration just what kind of coverage and services you are getting for that price. Even if the price is fantastic if the company isn’t protecting your business how it needs to be protected then there isn’t much point. Any good fire alarm monitoring company will be able to provide you with references for their service. This gives you s good idea of how their services work, what kind of company they are, and just how well they handle their business. If the company refuses or cannot provide references then this should be a red flag that something isn’t right. You want to work with a company that had a proven track record for success.
Be sure that you are getting what you need for your money because this is a very important business decision. This decision is helping the business and its employees stay safe and this is not to be taken lightly. Having a fire alarm monitoring company on your side will ensure that safety is being taken care of.
by Chris on August 7, 2010
In recent years candles have become a staple of home décor providing not just light and a nice scent but contributing to the decorations of a room. There are candles that are designed to create more positive feelings or elevate someone’s mood. There are candles that are designed to fit in with any style of home design imaginable. But as people’s love for candles grows there is an added risk of fire as well. Statistics have show that fires caused by burning candles is increasing every year and that trend is likely to continue if homeowners don’t take precautionary measures. Simple carelessness can mean the difference between averting a fire or losing your home and possessions.
Of course many would say that the simplest solution is to simply never burn candles, but this is largely impractical since at some point one will get lit by someone. The best thing is to keep candles in a safe environment where the risk of fire is minimal anyway. You need to be very careful when handling night-lights or tea lights. These become very hot and can even melt plastic. A lot of people mistakenly believe that keeping a candle on a television is safe, but the materials in a television are not fire resistant. It is very important to have proper candleholders for all of your candles. A candleholder should be stable and be able to hold the candle upright securely. It should be made of a material that is not likely to heat up or melt, ceramic or glass are good choices.
Don’t place candles underneath an overhanging shelf. The candle generates a lot of heat and if it all collects on the underside of a shelf it can cause a fire. There should be at least 3 feet above the candle that is obstacle free. If you are burning more than one candle they should be at least 4 inches apart from each other.
Votive and scented candles melt and become a liquid in order to release the scent. These must be placed in a glass or metal cup to catch the melted liquid. Also be sure that no foreign objects fall into the wax or it can catch fire. Snuff out the flame on these candles to reduce the risk of blowing hot wax onto something flammable.
Finally, a burning candle should never be left unattended. Never leave the room or go to sleep without extinguishing all candles. Double check just to be sure you didn’t miss any before leaving the room completely.
by Chris on July 8, 2010
Many people these days are choosing to spend their vacations or even their entire retirement years in an RV, recreational vehicle. They are very popular for those who want to see the whole of the country but not pay for all that plane fare and hotel stays. But while more and more people are using RV’s not many people are considering how to keep that RV safe from accidental fires. Many are started with RV furnace and RV heaters. Whether the RV is very small and basic or large with accessories galore there are still dangers that need to be considered. The good news is that all RV’s generally have very good safety equipment that is designed to keep all its passengers as safe as possible. All RV owners should know what that safety equipment is and how to use is and where to get RV parts if needed.
There are usually four types of fire extinguishers that are common on an RV. The fire extinguisher is assigned a letter, A, B, C, or D. This letter indicates what kind of fire the extinguisher is designed to fight. Although it is not unusual to find ratings for multiple kinds of fires like ABC or BC. Those ratings indicate that the extinguisher can be used to battle several kinds of fires. The extinguishers most common on an RV are those that battle fires caused by combustible liquids like gas, oil, and grease. The most common type of fire on an RV is type A, for fires caused by paper items. But since oil, grease, electrical, and paper items are all a fire danger then it is wise to keep several types of extinguisher on the vehicle.
But just keeping a fire extinguisher on the vehicle is not enough to protect from fires alone. The RV owner must know what the fire extinguishers are for and how to use them for them to be effective at all. Everyone who will be on the RV should be educated about what fire extinguisher to use for what type of fire and how it should be used. Before you start any journey it might be useful to put a small piece of paper that tells exactly what kind of fire it should be used for on the extinguisher. Just labeling the extinguisher with an A, B, C, or D could be confusing and useless in an emergency. But having a label that says specifically grease and oil is much harder to get confused.
Next is learning out to use the extinguisher properly. To remember the steps you need to remember the word PASS. This stands for Pull, Aim, Squeeze and Sweep. First you will the pin located at the top of the extinguisher. Then aim the nozzle at the base of the fire, not the flames themselves, just the base. Next you squeeze the handle while standing about eight feet away from the flames. Lastly you sweep the extinguisher across the fire until it is completely out. Wait and make sure it doesn’t re-ignite. And of course, call for the fire department once everyone is safely away from the fire.
by Chris on July 8, 2010
According to reports by the U.S. Fire Administration, USFA, accidental fires in the home are the cause of thousands of injuries and deaths every year. Fire safety is not something that you want to take lightly and you need a plan for how to handle it if the worst should happen. One way that you can do this is by having a fire escape plan for your home. The best way to develop one of these is sit down with the entire family and have a discussion about fire safety and escaping the home in the event of an emergency. By having this discussion with everyone at once you can be sure that everyone is aware of the plan and has the exact same details as everyone else. Fires spread very quickly and it can be disastrous if one person has a completely different escape plan than everyone else.
During this discussion is should be determined what everyone’s responsibilities are going to be. For example, if there is a young child in the home who is responsible for making sure that child is safe and out of the home. You and the family should go through every room of the house and determine what are the two safest routes of escape from that room. Obvious routes are of course the door or the window. You need to establish a meeting place that is outside the home and a safe distance away where everyone will meet in the event of a fire. That way if a fire should break out and someone is missing from the meeting place, you can inform the fire department who is missing and where they likely are. Also be sure that everyone knows that during a fire is not the time to try and save your belongings. Leave them all behind and try to wake the rest of the family by shouting fire while you crawl to the nearest escape point.
If you live in a residential building where there is more than one family, like an apartment building, there will often be additional routes of escape during a fire. Many apartment buildings have fire escapes located outside the windows of the building. A lot of residential buildings will also have specially marked fire exits that you can use as well. When you move in it’s important to have the property manager point out these fire exits for you so that you can use that knowledge in your family safety plan. No matter where you live you should be practicing your fire safety escape plan as a family at least once a month.
The most important part of any fire safety plan is determining a way to notify the local fire department once you get outside the home. A lot of times a neighbor will call when they smell smoke or see flames but you should have a plan to do it yourself and not hope that the neighbors are awake. Including your neighbors in your fire safety plan is a good way to do this. Being able to knock on the neighbor’s door and call the fire department from there is a great solution. But remember the most important step is getting everyone out of the house first and calling the fire department second. Write your safety plan down and keep it with emergency phone numbers so that everyone in the family can review it whenever they wish and keep it fresh in their minds.
by Chris on July 5, 2010
Whether we are talking about your home or your office safety is a primary concern and concern about fire safety should be at the top of your list. As a society, we all look to certain equipment, tools, and procedures that will help keep us safe and our property protected from fire. Thousands of buildings fall prey to accidental fire every year so practicing proper safety and using the right equipment can help save your possessions from damage.
Any method of fire protection that you employ needs to be effective and efficient. You cannot protect yourself from an out of control blaze if you have to spend ten minutes figuring out how exactly you’re supposed to use this alien device. Fires can happen to everyone. Whether your home is a little one bedroom shack or a multi-million dollar estate, it can still happen to you.
To set up a scenario let’s think of a hard working individual who is just trying to make a decent living. He works a full time job and saves up his money so that one day he can get the home he’s always wanted. Eventually he is able to move his family into that dream home and can finally enjoy his hard work. One day the family goes to bed and a fire breaks out while everyone is asleep. In this scenario no one is alerted until it is too late to save the home because he didn’t have a simple smoke detector. This imaginary scenario is not quite so imaginary and happens to thousands of people every year.
Now is the time to make sure that this tragedy does not happen to you. You need to have working fire safety equipment in your house and practice how to use it in an emergency. The first tool that every home needs is smoke detectors and fire alarms. There should be one on every floor of your home and in fire prone places like the kitchen, bathroom, or basement. Test the batteries and the device monthly to make sure that everything is working properly. The fire alarm does no good if the batteries are dead when a fire breaks out.
The second piece of fire safety equipment that every home should have is a fire extinguisher. You should always have at least two in your home, one for the kitchen and one for every floor. You don’t want to store them in the basement where you can’t get to them, they need to be easily accessible. Practice how to use the fire extinguisher regularly so that everything will go smoothly in an emergency.
Just by taking these two simple steps you can greatly reduce the risk of losing your home to a fire. Not only will you be able to immediately know there is a fire in the home but have the means to attempt to control it until the fire department gets there.
