a small favour to you all please

.. one job I was in for ten years plus and loved a lot was as a fire investigator. I used to design systems that would get detect fires, get people of a building quickly and put them out.
I have seen a lot of death and destruction through fires and have seen what fire can do to people - and the worst time was always this time of the year.
Therefore, I ask every single one of you this evening please ths small favour.

Go and look at each of the smoke detectors in your house.

If you have not got a detector - please go and get one and advise me and I will tell you where to put it. For the record - from any wall go out 12 inches and then add a further few on from there. It must be in the middle of the ceiling - NEVER on a wall. Anyway- I can advise on where to site it.

Now looking at the detector/s - go and get the hoover and turn it on. Put the nozzle up to the detector and move it around and get that dust sucked out.

Then check it works - check the battery - is it loud ? Is the light if you have one on your bright and easy to see? If neither here - go and get a new battery.

I have read too much about people who have not had detectors fitted. You dont need an electrican for a battery one - its straight forward and quick to do.

I have been to fires and into buildings when things failed to work cause people did not look after these crazy bits of mechanical engineering.

It also takes seconds to check and clean, a battery is a lot easier to replace than what you are.

My thanks to you all - whats a few seconds - huh?

Kev

Kev, thank you for reminding everybody that this is something we all have to think about. We live in a semi-detached house, and own the adjoining house, which we rent out. In February 1987, our tenant came home from work, turned on the extra space heater in the bathroom because he wanted to shower, and then fixed himself something to eat downstairs. When he went back upstairs, the bathroom was in flames, because a towel was too close to the space heater. He called the fire department right away, but we were right in the middle of a blizzard, and it took over twenty minutes for them to get to our house(s). By that time, the entire upstairs was in flames. I will never forget the feeling of helplessness I had, standing outside and watching flames shooting out of the roof and windows. We were lucky - nobody was injured, and our homeowner's insurance covered most of the damage, but the whole thing was an absolute nightmare. I would add that everybody should have a fire extinguisher in their house, and have its function checked out at regular intervals. It's also important to have a sticker/sign/whatever on the front of the house that shows how many pets of what species are in the house.

We have it coverd at our house.

Thanks
Shirrell

Kev,
You're such a doll! You always are looking out for someone & that is such an awesome thing!

Question for you...
My apartment doesn't have any alarms in the actual apartment, but there are several in the hallways of the complex. Actually one is right about my front door. Plus they have an alarm system like what the schools have (that have the handle that you pull if you see or smell a fire). Do you think this is enough or should I add some in my apartment?

Thanks!

I will check the smoke detector that's in our apartment....... Thank You very much for looking out for us Kev . You are a godsend .

Originally posted by Shell
Kev,
You're such a doll! You always are looking out for someone & that is such an awesome thing!

Question for you...
My apartment doesn't have any alarms in the actual apartment, but there are several in the hallways of the complex. Actually one is right about my front door. Plus they have an alarm system like what the schools have (that have the handle that you pull if you see or smell a fire). Do you think this is enough or should I add some in my apartment?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Good morning - I would recommend a battery smoke detector for thew apt some place. - the first port of call is some place like in a hall way if you have one in the house. Fire likes to travel in circles - thats why you never put a detetcor right next to the wall and ceiling together- 99 % of the time it misses it and smoke is fatal. if you could draw me your apt and email it to my normal address - [email protected] its easier for me to see then. What you have in a building like yours is smoke dtectors in corridors and break glass points. The rule in the UK used to be - you should never have to travel more than 25 meters in any direction to get to a break glass. the det etc are possibly on a 24volt system. no big deal and detectors tend to be photo electric.
Email me a drawing with approx sizes and can go from there.
Best wishes
K

Covered here Kev - my husband used to sell fire safety equipment. We had an electrical fire once and we were soooooooo thankful that we owned 5 fire extinquishers at the time - we put out the fire before the firemen arrived.

I'd like to add that if you have nothing but smoke alarms built into your electrical system, make sure they are on battery backup (and you change the batteries yearly), or add battery smoke detectors. A large percentage of fires start with the electrical system, and if that goes, your electric smoke alarms are useless.

Thanks so much Kev I will take some time tomorrow to test and clean each one. I had never given much thought to vacumming the dust out but I will now.

thanks Kev we are all covered! Ted used to be a vol. fireman,he has seen to many people who didn't pass away.

Kev, that is a very good reminder. Especially now, when people have all those Christmas decoration with candles and lights.

I must admit, that I have 2 fire detectors, both of them are on a shelf in the kitchen behind the kitchen door, and one of them is even still in the box. I´m not even sure if they have batteries, we tend to "borrow" the batteries for somethings like the kitchen scale Well, at least one of them has batteries, I pretty sure of that...but even though they both have batteries I dont think they are of any good close to the floor on a shelf...

....but at least I recently started unplugging my tv/video/dvd...at night, since it is all in a cupboard with little breathing space and it gets hot in there....