This week we have electrician “Bec Sparky” answering a question relation to safety in Winter.
How do we keep fire safe in Winter?
With winter in full force, the number of household fires increases dramatically. There are many ways to prevent fires in winter. Never use electric heaters which have damage, ensure you do not place clothing and other items over or near heaters and do not bring coal/wood fire burners indoors.
The easiest way to prevent deaths due to fires is to ensure you have working smoke detectors. Battery powered smoke detectors are fine as long as you keep up the maintenance by checking them monthly and replacing the battery once a year. The main disadvantage of these types of detectors is that you don’t know that they are not working until it is too late. The best way to solve this and for peace of mind is to have mains powered smoke detectors installed by your electrician. The best type for detecting smouldering fires is the photo electric detector. These are recommended by most state fire associations for home installation.
The photo electric detectors are less prone to nuisance alarms due to cooking and can be interlinked to other detectors in the home. The hard wired alarms are continuously powered and will indicate, by beeping or chirping, when the backup battery needs to be changed. Unfortunately many people find that this noise is annoying and disconnect the smoke detector. Fire brigades across the country have reported that an alarming number of residences have had smoke detectors, but they have been disconnected.
Smoke detector maintenance is very simple and is outlined in this video.
Smoke alarms also have a limited lifespan and need to be replaced every 10 years to remain effective against preventing deaths. Talk to your Electrician about having mains powered, photo electric smoke alarms installed.
Excellent advice from Bec Sparky this week, and as you know very close to my heart. We are so very fortunate that my brother and his family were not home when their house burnt down last year, and this has certainly made us more aware of the potential danger of not having correctly working and maintained smoke detectors.
If you have a question for Bec, or any of our professional team, please leave your question here in the comments or send me an email at [email protected]
Don’t forget to check Bec out at her website, Facebook and on YouTube.
Nicole xxx
Great post Bec! I love the video too. Off to share it on my facebook page.
Thanks for sharing Bec. x
[…] have you had a chance to check out her You Tube channel yet? Last time Bec was here, we looked at Keeping Fire Safe In Winter This time Bec is discussing a common question she is asked, and just how dangerous the outcome […]