A few days ago, while "cooking" dinner, we set off our smoke alarm. As I'm sure you already know, that is not one of the most ear-pleasing sounds to come out of a kitchen. I did the standard: turned on the fans, opened the windows, and wildly waived a towel in front of it.
When the noise and the ensuing household chaos finally subsided, I realized that in the few years we have been in our house, I had never known if that smoke alarm worked. This is the single device most likely to save my family's lives in the event of a fire, and I didn't know if it worked. I was appalled with myself.
You may or may not be in the same boat as me, but its worth checking out your smoke detectors when you read this statistic: you and your family are twice as likely to die in a serious house fire if you don't have smoke alarms than if you do!
A few more suggestions while we're on the subject of smoke detectors:
-If you don't have them, get and install smoke alarms now! If you do have them, make sure they work!
- Buy smoke alarms that have the seal of approval from an independent testing firm such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL) or Factory Manual (FM).
- Your house should have at least one smoke alarm on each level and one outside each bedroom.
- You should test your smoke alarms at least once a month, and you should replace the batteries in the smoke alarms at least once a year. Many people change their batteries when they change their clocks in the spring and fall.
- Make certain everyone in your family can recognize the sound of the smoke alarm(s), and they know what that sound means.
- You should plan escape routes from every room in the house, and you should figure out at least two ways to get out of each room.
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