Home Fire Safety Equipment

Every home should be fitted with several smoke alarms on every level of the house. The smoke alarms can be either Ionization Smoke Detectors or Photoelectric Smoke Detectors. Both have their advantages so it is always a good idea to have at least one of each type.

If you are especially cautious, you may feel that you require additional fire safety equipment, this may be because you live in a remote area, you are not totally able or that you have appliances in your home that are more at risk to start a fire.

There are a number of different items other than smoke detectors that you can buy or install in you home to help in the event of a fire.

There are 3 different types of fire extinguisher: powder extinguishers, water extinguishers, and foam extinguishers.

Each type of extinguisher has advantages over the others depending on the type of fire for which it is to be used, but no one type of extinguisher is completely effective on every fire type. Before purchasing a fire extinguisher it is a good idea to research which type of extinguisher is best for which situation and then buy the one for the fire type that is most likely to occur in your home.

The most common fire extinguishers used in the home are Aqueous Film Forming Foam extinguishers and Dry Powder extinguishers. They are the most straight forward to use, they have the fewest dangers associated with them and they both work on a wide range of different fires.

If you are going to keep a fire extinguisher in your home, it is extremely important that you know how to use it and that you store it in a cool dry place out of the reach of children but in a location that is accessible in case of a fire. Make sure that it is small enough for you to carry and get it serviced once a year.

Fire blankets are medium weight fire-resistant sheets of material that can be used to cover a fire. When they are place on the fire they smother it, which cuts the supply of oxygen to the fire and can help put it out or keep it under control. They are often used to wrap around someone whose clothing is on fire or to put out a small fire.

The main benefits of fire blankets are that they are relatively cheap, quick to use and easy to store. Having said that, to use a fire blanket you will need to get very close to the fire so they are generally only useful on smaller contained fires such as a chip pan fire. It is a good idea to keep them somewhere close at hand such as mounted somewhere in your kitchen.

Sprinklers are a more expensive fire safety device but when they are fitted in a home they greatly reduce the risk of a death from a fire. They are especially useful in homes where there are elderly or sick people who cannot react quickly to the threat of a fire.

When sprinkler systems are fitted in your home, each sprinkler is individually heat activated so all of them wont go off at once and there is little risk of them going off unintended as it takes a very high heat to induce them. Always remember that sprinklers are not an alternative to smoke detectors. They should be used in conjunction with smoke detectors as they cannot detect smoke which is the earliest warning sign of a fire.