Fire Prevention in the Home

AlanD

Might be the wrong forum here but,

For months I've been meaning to sort my house out with fire extinguishers and blankets and such but have never got around to it. Watching Prime Time on Monday has got me back in to action.

Thing is, I'm not sure what I should be buying and how many!

I reckon I need a powder extinguisher, one for the kitchen and one for upstairs. How big of a one do I need though? Is a 1kg unit too small? Is 2kg too big?

Also, escape ladder waste of money and you'd rather just jump or worth having. We have mains supplied smoke alarms on both levels so we seem to be covered there.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

oneillk

not sure about appropriate extinguisher siaze but i would defo go for a carbon or heat detector in the kitchen. This will go off incase of fire as it will react to the carbon or heat and not go off when you just burn yuour toast as a result of smoke. Always make sure all living room, kitchen and corridor doors are closed when you go to bed, this will help slow the progress of a fire and dont allow any bedroom doors to be lock while sleeping. Ensure front and back doors and bedroom windows are easily openable, i.e leave keys in them on the inside when locked so if your in a hurry you dont loose time trying to find the keys.
I wouldn bother with the ladder, it would take more time off your escape, just climb out window and jump, better you have a sprained ankle than get burnt. Also, i would reccoment you have a fire drill/plan. Ie in case a fire does occurr you run through what you should do, very important if you have a family. So, when the alarm goes off, every one know what to do and which room to go too etc, if you worried about the jump, especially if you have kid why not have some sort of structure on the ground below their bedroom windows that would break their fall. I.e large garden storage boxes (like the ones in argos). anything that helps shorten the distance.
Just my thoughts. hope it helps

Litcagral

I think it is a disgrace that the Government do not appear to be taking any serious measures to educate the general public in relation to the phasing out of 999 as the emergency number. Many people are still not aware that 112 is now the EU wide general emergency number.

In Emergency Dial 112

KdjaCL

Fire can only spread over burnable material ie tiled floors wont go up in flames.

A fire extinguisher at top of stairs and one near kitchen door and a fireblanket in kitchen is sufficent. Argos has a pack thats cheap enough and does the job. Pwwder for downstairs more change of electrical there and plain old red for upstairs.

Make sure you windows upstairs are escapable as its only a few feet of a drop might break your ankles but worth it.


kdjac

Soledad

http://sardinia.terminalfour.com/nsc/dev/FireSafety/

AlanD

999 is going away? I knew about 112 in other countries, but not here. Anyway, good to know.

As for fire extinguishers, the ones you can buy in any hardware store look to be good value, but do they need servicing once a year? Who does it? Would we be better off buying from a fire extinguisher company like Antifyre or something so that we can always ensure the extinguisher is going to work. The last thing you'd need is to go to use it and it doesn't work.

We've started putting a fire escape plan together so we know what to do in case and we'll just jump out if we can't get downstairs. It isn't that high.

But I'm just concerned about the quality of extinguishers on the market