Tis the Season: The season for fires, floods and kitchen disasters. Don’t let the weather fool you. Winter is almost here. Take these preventative measures and you will sleep better, dryer and wake up alive.
Don’t Get Hosed: Time to disconnect the hoses from the house. Water frozen in a garden hose can and will expand back through the spigot (Hose Bib) and start a flood.
Don’t Get Burned: When setting up your inside holiday lighting don’t overload the outlets or power strips. Check to make sure the batteries in your smoke detectors are charged. Replace if not.
Clean out your dryer vent: I know I said this last month. I’m betting you haven’t yet.
The heating elements in dryers can deteriorate with age and use. When this occurs, they can begin to throw sparks or embers into the duct. Because of this I always recommend hard metal ducting not the flexible type which an ember or spark can burn through quickly spreading a fire to the structure.
The Kidde website is a great source of information regarding home safety and fire protection. https://www.kidde.com/home-safety/en/us/
People will die this winter because of this mistake: Never power a space heater with an extension cord and NEVER run an extension cord under a rug, carpet or other flammable material.
Don’t be a Clark Griswold: When lighting up the exterior of your home I always recommend using heavy duty extension cords with 12/3-gauge wire rated for extreme cold. All outdoor outlets should be GFCI type.
Important Holiday Cooking Tip: Never ever, ever use the self-cleaning feature on your range or oven. As appliances age the heating elements can become brittle. The extreme heat generated in the self-cleaning process can burn out your oven. It can also cause the glass to shatter.
Even if your most nosey in-law is coming to town and you know they are going to look in your oven to see if it’s clean don’t risk using the self-clean mode.
