Thank you First Alert for sponsoring this post. October is Fire Prevention Month! Help ensure your home and family are ready for the unexpected by installing smoke & CO alarms and having fire extinguishers!

Did you know that October is Fire Prevention Month? Well, it is! The National Fire Protection Association named the second week of October Fire Prevention Week in 1922 in commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871; now we use the entire month to educate everyone on how they can be the most prepared for these most devastating, unplanned events! 

In July of this year, we purchased a new home in Arizona. This home is much larger than our previous home, so there have been several much appreciated growing pains. I was comforted by the fact that each bedroom and living area had a smoke alarm until I pulled one down to check the manufacture date. Our house still had the original smoke alarms from when it was built in 2003! Luckily, I made this discovery within a few days of closing and immediately began doing my research on replacement alarms.

Unfortunately, it is very easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of information available on this important topic! There are so many alarms out there; it can be difficult to find the best one! With the help of First Alert, I decided that the easiest way to go about this was to make a checklist!

First Alert Whole Home Safety Check List

I highly recommend personalizing your checklist to meet the needs of your household, as I do here!

• Replace all old alarms. If you do not have alarms installed, I highly recommend that you invest in a smoke AND carbon monoxide alarm on each level and in each bedroom of your home. This alarm pictured here is by First Alert – it’s the Combination Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm with a 10-year sealed battery – and it fits the bill perfectly. It’s super easy to install without any complicated wiring!

• Create and practice an escape plan. It is imperative that everyone in your home knows what the plan is in the event of a fire. Much like the fire drills performed at schools! At the minimum, the plan should be practiced twice a year. If you have young littles as we do, more often is probably best, since they like to have short-term memory loss about everything that’s not immediately entertaining. You can also make sure to make it fun to help the most important parts stick! Draw fun pictures of the plan. Incorporate neighbors in the practices (if they’re a part of the plan) and celebrate a job well done with everyone’s favorite food! Be sure to highlight things like calling 911 once you’ve made it to the meeting spot that is a safe distance away from the home.

Halfway There!

• Install a First Alert Kitchen Fire Extinguisher. Fun Fact: The #1 cause of fires is unattended cooking! I don’t know about you, but I had never seen a fire extinguisher outside of a school or business setting until we got ours. The First Alert Kitchen Fire Extinguisher is easy to use, lightweight and small, making it really easy to store in a kitchen cabinet. Again, my plan is very specific to the needs of our home, BUT you should also have a fire extinguisher on each level of your house in an easily accessible place!

• Equally as important as having an extinguisher is knowing how to use it. P.A.S.S. is an easy acronym to keep you on your A-game!
  • P – Pull the pin 
  • A- Aim the nozzle at the base of the fire 
  • S- Squeeze the trigger  
  • S- Sweep from side to side

• Finally, test alarms and batteries regularly! This last step varies depending on the type of alarms you have installed. You should test your alarms regularly. Period. I test mine once a week because I just replaced them and it’s still fresh on my mind, but once a month works too! If your alarms have batteries, they should be changed at least every 6 months! If you don’t want to be bothered with doing that, there are upgraded alarm options such as this First Alert Combination Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm with 10-year sealed battery  I have pictured above. It obviously won’t need battery replacements; I will just replace the entire thing in 10 years!

Now What?

Now, that you have a nice guideline for making a checklist: where can you get your First Alert products? Your local Lowe’s is a great place to start! And once you’ve located your products and purchased them, you can refer back to First Alert for more information about Fire Prevention Month. You can find important statistics like how 3 out of 5 home fire deaths occur in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms. It’s such an unfortunate realization when installing new smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarms is so easy! I installed ours with a little assistance from my husband and daughter.

Here are a few pre-installation tips!

As I said above, it was super simple to get this First Alert Combination Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm with a 10-Year Sealed Battery installed. I’ll lay out for you the steps it took!

• Place the mounting plate on the location you want to put your alarm and use a marker to mark the 2 locations you’re going to put your screws.
• Drill the 2 holes with a 3/16 drill bit.
• Gently tap the screw anchors into the holes.
• Place the mounting plate over the anchors and screw it into place.
• Take the alarm and twist it onto the mounting plate.
• Andddd you are done!

There’s nothing to do, but to do it my friends! It has never been more convenient to be ready for the unexpected and protect your whole home! Be sure to take advantage of this Fire Prevention Month by getting your house in order!

Thank you again to First Alert for sponsoring this post! As always, please check out my previous posts and leave a comment with your thoughts or questions below!

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