Nowadays, making your house a fire-safe area is easier and cheaper than ever. In fact, a modern house already features several fire-safe elements that simply didn’t exist 20 years ago. For example, most houses are now fitted with fire-retardant wall and ceiling insulation as standard. Modern electric setups are often already fire safe, as are modern lighting and fuse systems.
Use Fire Retardant Materials
Let’s say you have wood flooring installed. Have it sealed with fire retardant and fire resistant varnishes. In fact, there are many wood flooring varieties you can buy that are already pre-treated and that are already fire resistant to a degree.
There are carpets, wallpapers, and even kitchen counters that are very fire resistant. Yet, if you want to make simpler choices, you can opt for obviously fire-resistant materials. For example, instead of having wallpaper, you could paint your walls. Instead of having wood flooring, you could have tile.
Smoke Alarms and Fire Extinguishers
We should all have at least one or two fire alarms. You should probably put it on your upper landing because putting it in the kitchen often leads to false positives when you burn the toast. Also, though having a fire extinguisher may seem like overkill, there are special fire extinguishers for certain types of fires.
For example, we all know that putting water on a burning chip pan oil is a bad idea, but there are fire extinguishers for that. There are even extinguishers that can put out petrol and oil fires in your garage. You may be proud of your child or sibling for starting a garage-based motorcycle repair shop, fibreglass workshop, or car painting business but some of the chemicals used can be very flammable, and there are certain types of fire extinguisher needed in order to put them out correctly.
Fireproof Your Home With Fire Doors
Some people think that fire doors are some sort of extravagance, or that they are overkill with regards to fire safety, but the fact is that they are becoming regular (and expected) features of modern houses. You do not need fire doors on every doorway, but some key areas in your house can really benefit from fire doors, be it your hallway, your kitchen, your kids’ door, or the door between your garage and your kitchen. Plus, these days, fire doors are very reasonably priced, and fire door fitters cost only a tiny fraction more than regular door fitters.
Modern Fuse Boards Help Prevent Fires
The way that modern electronics work, what with double insulation, and what with the way fuse boxes work, it is actually very difficult to start an electric fire in your house. In reality, all you have to do is check to see if your electronics and household electric setup is up to date. If it is, then fire safety takes care of itself outside of you doing something silly (like overloading a single socket or letting moisture get inside of your wall wiring connections).
Conclusion – Fire Safety is Not Expensive
Perhaps the biggest point to be made in this article is that making your home a safer place is not expensive. In fact, when you consider how much people spend on gaming, on their cars, on gambling, on clothes, and on decorating, it is fair to say that fire safety is downright cheap. Plus, fire safety is not perishable. Your fire doors are not going to erode away, and your fireproof insulation is not going to evaporate. In short, making your home safer is not a costly endeavour, which means you have fewer excuses than ever for not upgrading and making your home safe from fire.
