Old houses, space heaters and long cold nights. Here is the checklist we run through every October before the first hard frost on the Ohio.
Kitchen
Most home fires start where the cooking happens. Hang a fire blanket within reach of the stove, never right above it, and keep an ABC extinguisher by the door you would leave through.
Bedrooms and halls
- Test every smoke alarm and replace batteries in the ones that are not hardwired
- Consider interconnected alarms, so one sounding means all of them sound
- Keep a folding escape ladder in every upstairs bedroom and practice opening the window
Space heaters
Pick heaters with tip-over and overheat shutoff. Give them three feet of clear space, plug them straight into the wall rather than a power strip, and turn them off when you leave the room.
The wiring you cannot see
Many homes in Aliquippa and across Beaver County were built while the mill was running full tilt, decades before modern wiring codes. A plug-in sensor that warns about overheating wiring is an inexpensive extra set of eyes.
The plan
Walk the family through two ways out of every room and pick a meeting spot outside, like the neighbor's mailbox. It takes ten minutes and it is the step most people skip.
