Remember Fire Safety During Spring Cleaning

Spring cleaning is a wonderful opportunity for homeowners to start their summer fresh with a clean home. It also gives you a wonderful opportunity to make repairs and address issues with your home that may have arisen over the past year. While this may include some general home maintenance, it also can include addressing safety issues that may need attention, and arguably the most pressing safety issue for any homeowner is their fire safety. Fires occur suddenly, spread quickly, and leave nothing but devastation in their wake. However, you can improve your fire safety this summer by following these easy spring cleaning tips.

Check Your Detectors

Your smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors are your first warning of any potential problems in your home. If a fire or gas leak were to break out while you and your family are asleep, you rely on these devices to alert you and help you spring into action quickly. This could potentially save your home as well as your property, your family, and even your life.

Each of these devices have a battery that they use for backup power in the event your main electricity goes out. Spring cleaning is a great time to go through each of them and change this battery to make sure it’ll work in the event your power goes out all year long.

Inspect Your Cords

We rely on electrical cords to power our devices every single day. Over time, these cords will eventually fray, wear out, and become damaged, which creates a substantial fire risk. Spring cleaning gives you a chance to inspect each of these cords and see if they have become damaged throughout the year. Normally a cord that isn’t touched should be just fine, but those which are frequently plugged and unplugged, or could be nibbled on by a curious pet may have sustained some damage, which means you should either repair the cord or replace the item it’s associated with. You can repair mild damage using a length of non-conductive tape, such as duct tape or electrician’s tape.

Clean the Dryer

Your electric dryer is one of your most heavily used appliances, and it’s one that most people don’t clean out nearly enough. Dryers collect fabric lint after each cycle, which is an extraordinarily flammable substance. When you don’t clean it out of your dryer, this flammable substance sits near a heat source for use after use, which is just begging for it to accidentally ignite. The number of homes that are damaged by dryers every year is often surprising to many homeowners, so do your due diligence and use this opportunity to remove lint and other materials from the inside and around your dryer. And make a habit of checking the lint trap before each cycle in order to clean it out and minimize this risk.

Clean Cooking Areas

Your kitchen is arguably the most often-used room in the home, and over repeated uses it frequently builds up an abundance of clutter on countertops, in cupboards, and more. In addition to using this time to clean old or spoiled food out of the refrigerator and freezer, spring cleaning also gives you the chance to de-clutter your countertops, make sure your electrical plugs have plenty of clearance, and to clean the grease of cooking surfaces like your stovetop and microwave.

Another site of grease buildup is in the bottom of your barbecue or grill. Cleaning out the grease trap periodically may not be a pretty job, but it can prevent a sudden inferno from enveloping your grill while you’re simply trying to have a summer cookout in your yard. While cleaning your grill, check your propane tank and connection hose for any leaks which may be releasing flammable propane gas into the air.

Have an Escape Plan

When an emergency strikes, you should have a plan you can follow immediately. If your house were to catch fire, know where the exits are, make sure they can be easily accessed, and make sure your entire family (including pets) are able to get out quickly and easily. Emergency preparedness not only saves lives, but can help you prevent damage to your home as well.