Home is a place where a family should feel completely comfortable and secure. Unfortunately, the home is often a dangerous place. The Home Safety Council (HSC), a national organization created for the sole purpose of helping people make their home safer, estimates home-related injuries result in nearly 20,000 deaths and 21 million medical visits on average each year. The organization's Web site offers an extensive guide and teaching tool for the safety-conscious homeowner. There is information on building a safe nursery, childproofing your home, creating a safe environment for the elderly and more. The Virtual Home Safety Tour takes you room by room, exposing every possible hazardous situation in and around the home. Even if you’re like me and you just can’t help being a “wild and crazy guy (or gal),” you probably still agree that you would like a sense of safety in your own home. All that is left for you to do is let the Home Safety Council help you achieve that feeling.
Protect your family from a chimney fire or carbon monoxide poisoning when you have your chimney swept. The Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) offers a program that certifies professional chimney sweepers. The program includes current information about inspection technology, fire safety codes and venting systems. Find a list of CSIA certified chimney sweepers within 50 miles of your home by logging on to the CSIA web site and entering your ZIP code. The site also includes a great video tutorial on what you can expect from a chimney sweep.
Haven't installed a home security system yet? Why not use a paintball gun? This video shows in painstaking detail how to connect an automatic paintball rifle to a motion detector. The setup is impractical and fairly complicated, but at least the video is amusing.
When you are locked out of your home, you are in a poor position to haggle. And unfortunately, as this LA Times article points out, there are locksmiths out there who will take advantage of the situation. Just ask Pat McGrath, who was charged $200 when he broke his key in his mailbox lock - $80 for a lock and $120 for 15 minutes of labor. I wish I made $480 an hour. In California, locksmiths are required to be licensed to work in the state, but restrictions are low and enforcement is lax. The best advice to avoid being scammed is to be prepared. Don't wait until you need a locksmith, find a good one beforehand.
It's an amazing statistic—400,000 break-ins during November and December. Many of those are the result of shared or distributed keys. Whether it's the neighbor, the dog sitter, the plumber, or your contractor, there are keys floating out there and anybody can get them. Changing the locks may be an option, but what a pain. Much better to enhance your lock system with a deadbolt. The NightWatch deadbolt from Master Lock is pretty cool. It functions like a regular deadbolt until you switch it into NightWatch mode, at which point no keys can unlock it from the outside. Use it at night to remain secure once all intended key users are home. Use it when you leave for vacation by setting it and backing out the garage door. Developed by Master Lock to respond to keyed break-ins and key bumping, a new form of intrusion, NightWatch is a great way to enhance your system before the rash of holiday robberies begin. It costs about $30 and only takes 15 minutes and a Phillips head screwdriver to install.
If you haven’t already included the phrase “Radio Frequency Identification” into your daily vocabulary, you might be a little behind the times. Better known as RFID, the technology is finding its way into every corner of the modern home, and now it’s keeping people OUT of our homes. The MyKey 2300 is a keyless locking system for the home that can replace ordinary door locks. With a wave your RFID card the door unlocks— smaller stick-on RFID cards can be put anywhere, including your cell phone or wallet. If you forget your card there is a concealed keypad on the device, allowing you to punch in a security code. Lock the device with the touch of a button, or choose the auto-lock device, which locks the door if it’s been closed for 3 seconds. $299 will get you the lock, 2 stick-on tags, 6 cards, the manual and installation guide. Available now.
This just in from the consumer electronics trade site, CEPro: The number of fatal fires in single- and two-family homes where smoke detectors were present is unacceptably high. While the professionals continue to argue about the exact statistics, the lesson for homeowners is twofold: Keep your smoke detectors in working order and make sure you have a planned escape route. The disturbing news is that while 96 percent of American homes have smoke alarms, alarms alone cannot save lives or prevent fires. Of the homes that had smoke alarms, according to the USFA Report, alarms operated in only 34 percent of the fatal fires and 12 percent of the single- and two-family residential fires. Many lives were lost while trying to escape. The report once again points to the need for safe secondary exits and well-maintained smoke alarms that are clean, with working batteries. Best of all, the professionals insist, is to hard-wire the alarms and install a residential sprinkler system.
