It was an ordinary day. Our electrician just left after wiring new smoke and fire detectors in our downstairs and upstairs hallways. He also told us that before we could ever sell our home, we would have to place smoke detectors in every bedroom in our house. A few days later I ordered them online and they now are all working in each of the three bedrooms on our second floor. He suggested they be placed on the ceiling near the door so they would be most effective if smoke would happen to enter the bedroom from the door.
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| Make sure you have working smoke detectors in your bedrooms. |
I recently read that you should always sleep with your door closed at nighttime just in case there would be a house fire while you were sleeping. I'm sure there are many reasons why you might want to keep your bedroom door open when you sleep at night such as hearing your children at night in case they wake, hearing possible break-ins or perhaps a home security system or even something going wrong with one of your household appliances might sound like good reasons to sleep with your bedroom door open, but none of these reasons can live up to the devastating reason why you should be closing your door at night: Surviving a house fire! Closing your door may not seem like a big deal to you, but in the event that you have a house fire while sleeping, it could give you more time to escape a fire at night. About 40 years ago the average time to escape a night-time house fire was 17 minutes; seems like quite a bit of time to most. But, with today's synthetic fabrics, household furniture and combustible home construction products, you now have about three minutes to escape a house fire at night. So, it is vital that you keep your bedroom door closed and have a working smoke and CO2 detector in the hallway outside your bedroom as well as a smoke detector inside your bedroom door.
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| You can put the smoke detector on the wall next to the door. |
Closing your bedroom door is your best bet to survive a night-time house fire. A new campaign has the slogan of "close before you doze." The Underwriter's Labratory (UL), which was founded in 1894, did testing and found that keeping your bedroom door closed can be the difference between life and death in the case of a night-time house fire. They also suggest you have an escape plan in place so if you have a fire you will be able to get out safely. But, the major suggestion is close your door. Carol and I have been keeping our door closed at night, for a few years now, but not because we had read of the main reason to do so. We have two cats that were strays who decided to make us their parents a few years ago. They are wise guys, to put it bluntly. They would always want to play in our bed at night as we slept and we eventually had to put them in our hallway and close our bedroom door before we went to bed. Little did we know that the Gray Lady and Snickerdoodle were helping us live a bit longer due to having our bedroom door closed while we slept. Now, your next chore is to plan a way to escape from your bedroom if perhaps a fire would be outside your bedroom door. Jumping from the second floor may not be a good choice unless you have shrubs to catch you when you jump as we do. Don't wait until it happens...make arrangements NOW! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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