5 New Year’s Resolutions you SHOULD be making

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It’s that time of year when we’re making (and breaking) our well-intended New Year’s Resolutions.

What did you pledge for 2018? To lose weight? Get a promotion? Stop smoking? How about preventing your family and home from being devastated in a fire? Take five minutes to look at our New Year’s Resolutions’ checklist and ensure your home is as safe as it can possibly be.

  • Check your smoke alarms

    Smoke detector
    Check your smoke alarms and give them a mini service to ensure they are in tip-top working order.

Take down every smoke alarm in your home and check the manufacturing date. If it’s older than 10 years, replace it. Some have fixed batteries which last for 10 years, but if yours isn’t one of these, change the battery and while you have them down, vacuum them out to remove dust and fluff.

  • Clean your oven

    Woman cleaning oven
    Give your oven a good clean to reduce chances of grease and fat igniting.

This may not seem like a fire safety resolution, but grease build-up in ovens and stoves is a huge fire risk as it can easily ignite. Spend a couple of hours and work up a sweat by cleaning your own and grill pans out.

  • Have large appliances serviced

    Melted washing machine
    Have white goods serviced to help prevent fires in the home.

White goods cause up to five fires a day in the UK, it’s definitely worth having your larger appliances serviced by a manufacturer-approved company. If this isn’t an option, at the very least make sure filters are clear, wires are intact and appliances are running smoothly.

  • Don’t leave cooking unattended

    Kitchen fire
    Keep looking when cooking – don’t leave the kitchen unattended.

It’s easy to forget that you’ve put something on the hob, but kitchen fires account for around 60% of accidental fires in the home, so make sure you’re on hand should something go wrong.

  • Invest in a monitored fire alarm

    Monitored fire alarm - alarm receiving centre.
    An alarm receiving centre is instantly alerted in the case of a fire when you have a monitored fire alarm fitted.

Should the worst happen and a fire breaks out, a monitored detector, such as Fire Guardian, will instantly detect the issue and raise the alarm with the fire brigade whilst the blaze is still in its infancy, thus vastly reducing the danger for your family and your home.