You pride yourself on maintaining a beautiful home, but what if you are overlooking potential threats to your family’s safety? There is a myriad of concerns when it comes to home ownership, and even renters find themselves with a long list of things to do to make sure their home stays in tip-top shape. Here are some of the most frequently overlooked potential threats to your safety at home:
Chimney Fires
Chimney fires are more common than you might think. You may even have had a chimney fire without realizing it. Chimneys should be maintained yearly to ensure that they are in top working order and that a fire is not going to develop within them.
However, if you use your chimney heavily in the cold fall and winter months, it may be important to maintain it even more frequently. Brickworks Property Restoration can look for potential hazards in your chimney and perform maintenance and repair to ensure that a chimney fire won’t threaten your home.
A Water Heater Set Too Hot
Setting your water heater at a higher temperature can help it to run more smoothly, but a water heater set over 120 degrees Fahrenheit can cause a scald in seconds. Most water heaters, particularly tankless water heaters, alternate between warmer and cooler temperatures when there is more demand put on them.
For instance, if you are showering and also running the dishwasher, the varying demands that the dishwasher places on the water heater may cause the water coming from your shower tap to change temperature suddenly. This can easily result in a scald if the hottest temperature is over 120 degrees. The threat is greatest to children, but anyone can be burned in this way.
Unsecured Furniture
Tall furniture that is not anchored to a wall may topple over, a significant threat to anyone in your family. While it is most common for children to try to climb bookshelves or other accessories and knock them over, adults could also bump into furniture or fall against it, resulting in the furniture falling on them.
Even pets that run into furniture or try to climb it can be at risk of toppling furniture over. If you have any furniture that you suspect would not withstand being climbed on or knocked against, it is wise to anchor it to the wall for safety.
Enjoy a Safe Home
There is a lot of responsibility in maintaining a home, and it can be very easy to overlook some of the most common hazards to your family. However, it only takes a small amount of time and/or money to make changes that will make your home safer and give you greater peace of mind.
