Category: Let's talk
Hi all. Early this morning, my tumble dryer caught fire. I have smoke alarms fitted, and that was what warned me to the fire. I got out ok and nothing but the tumble dryer ws damaged. the house stinks of smoke now, but there's no lasting damage to anything bar the tumble itself. I urge everyone to get smoke alarms fitted, at least one for every floor in your house or flat. if you can't fit them yourself, the fire brigade will help if you give them a call. As the old advert said, Wake up! Get a smoke alarm!
wow, at least you're alright. all new houses that are built in this country now have to be fitted with smoke alarms by law. my house has two, one downstairs and one upstairs and I have to say they are incredibly sensitive, lol. and ... no it's got nothing to do with how bad I am as a cook, grin.
Dobbin, Good News indeed hearing that You are safe. The dryer can be repaired... Listen, and while on the topic of Smoke Alarms there NEEDS to be the reminder of making sure the batteries are in perfect working order or else most useless. A reminder in our area is at he time of Daylight Savings Time when persons are given to change their clocks to also change their smoke alarm batteries. It wouldn't have to be done at that particualr time but to choose a date, perhaps a birthday, something that would give the remeberance to do an extra check on the batteries. I realize many make a "beep" sound when the batteries are low but they really need to be kept fresh. What if when they are most needed the battery power is too low to be of any value. In this area it is recommended to change them yearly. Again, glad You are safe.
Feck! I'm gld you are ok..Thank goodness for the smoke alarms ..We have 2 fitted here...
the idea of using a birthday as a reminder to change the battery in your smoke detectors is a good one. now most ppl have these mobile phones with calenders on them, why not programme a reminder into them too? of course, another way to make sure the smoke alarm is always working is to plumb them into the mains, these sort do have battery backup, but I think it is a special rechargeable type which is charged off the mains and then goes into action if the mains are disrubpted. I might be wrong on this point. now the tumble dryer has been replaced, but it doesn't dry my clothes! arhrhrhrhg! phoneing the engineers today to get them to come out and see waht is going on!
thanks to all those who wished me well
we have one on each floor and 1 near the kitchen as well and I think 1 over the furnace, looks different from the rest but we had a small electrical issue over the summer, didn't start a fire but might have come close but even for no damage or anything, they woke us up and had that been a real problem I think we'd have had plenty of notice, though that being in the cellar and the front door being at the bottom of the stairs on the main floor so if we need to get out it's a straight shot out of my bedroom to the front door helps too. Our smoke alarms are hard wired in, with a battery backup but the battery backup is just a 9 volt battery that still should be replaced every year. Advantage to the hard wired ones is though, when 1 goes off, with in 5 seconds they all go off I think or maybe it's a 2 second delay from closest one to the next one and then to the next one I don't know but I do know they all go off after a couple seconds, and just the one on the main floor at the bottom of the stairs is loud enough to wake the dead, we don't even need the one upstairs. Now I think code is though all new houses have to have one in each bedroom as well.
I like the idea of the alarm connected to the mains I might look into that
I know in our location here in Michigan with the Insurnance Company we have they offer an additional incentive to homeowners to have the Smoke Alarms hooked up on all floors of a person's home as they are benefited additionaly by having lower insurnance rates.
Yeah, we've got a new house since 2003, and the smoke alarms are in each bedroom hooked to the mains and when one goes off, with in less than a second, there all beeping. Very annoying because there all loud and in every single place of the house. But it can save your life. Someone here said that the smoke detector over their furncae looks different. That is because it is a carbonmonoxyde detector. If that goes of, you should turn the furnace off, open your windows, and leave. Then, call the fire department. YOur house will not burn down, but carbonmonoxyde, produced by al gas furnaces can and wil kill you with out you even knowing. Its supposed to go out the roof, but it could leek. It probably isn't deadly to set foot in your house when it goes off, but, better safe then sorry!