Now that we are starting spring I urge you to start looking at your smoke alarms and other safety items around your house. Carbon Monoxide detectors and Fire Extinguisher. Also, re-connect with your family on safety measures.

Press the test button, it will make an annoying noise but you will save a life. Purchase a new one if it looks old, they aren’t expensive at all and every once in a while fire departments have giveaways.

I read several articles while I was checking my smoke alarms and they said most homeowners had four or fewer smoke alarms in their home, and 12 percent had one alarm. Most of the time, Americans never checked their smoke alarms. Some said they rely on the smoke alarm going off when the battery is totally dead. That happened to me. I wondered why it never went off when I burned something on the stove. Turns out it was 10 years old and had a dead battery.

The average single-family home should have at least five alarms. By the time a smoke alarm is 10 years old, it has a 30 percent chance of not working. Twenty-three percent of American adults said they would replace their home furnace, heater or air conditioning system if they knew it wouldn’t work tomorrow, but fewer than 5 percent said they would replace their smoke alarm.

Another good thing to have is a carbon monoxide alarm plugged in to the wall with a battery back up. Most people don't check those either, and that is something you will never see like you would if your house is on fire.

Get together with your family, what do you do in certain situations. Have a path that every child knows to get out of your house. Have a meeting place once you are out of the house, and practice many times if you have very young children.

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