A little fire safety planning now can help save your home — and your family — in a future emergency. No one ever thinks they will be the victim of a fire, yet thousands lose their lives or their homes every year. Here we’ll go over how fires start and what things can be done to increase your home fire safety, both from the inside and out. How Home Fires Start It’s a sad fact that many fires started in the home can be completely preventable. Home fires can start from any number of things we use every day. The most common causes of home fires are: Large appliances like clothes dryers or ovens Small appliances like hair dryers and toasters Overloaded electrical outlets Frayed or worn electrical cords Candles Holiday decorations and live Christmas trees Space heaters Unattended fire places How To Firesafe Your Home From The Inside There are some simple ways to reduce your risk of fire from inside your home. Many things may seem to be common sense and minor, but can drastically lower the chances of a fire. Unplugging items when they’re not in use is a great way to reduce your risk of fire. It’s also a simple way to reduce your electricity bill, since small appliances still have an electrical current going through them even if they’re off or not in use. Some kitchen appliances to unplug include toasters, coffee makers, blenders or anything else that only gets used sparingly. In the kitchen, make sure the electrical outlets that power the stove, microwave and dishwasher are wired to handle these powerful appliances. It’s a good idea to keep a fire extinguisher and baking soda on hand to handle any small fires that pop up while cooking. Baking soda is a quick and easy way to extinguish grease fires on top of the stove. Ensure any towels, curtains and products like waxed paper are kept away from hot burners and remember to never place metal in the microwave. It is always a good idea to practice using the fire extinguisher before you actually need it too. It’s so important to check your smoke alarms often and replace the batteries every 6 months. Although this is such a simple task, and the majority of people know that they should be checking their smoke detectors – most people never actually follow through! Many people find it helps to change the batteries when Daylight Savings Time begins or ends, or on the first day of fall and spring. The important part is setting a schedule and stick with it! Oftentimes, when fires occur, we find that the damage could have been minimized if the family had just checked the batteries in their smoke detectors. Smoke detectors should be placed in living and sleeping areas, but if you like to sleep with your bedroom door closed, it’s a good idea to place one in each bedroom. Smoke detectors are an easy and inexpensive way to keep your family safe in case of a fire. Practice ‘stop, drop and roll’ so everyone knows what to do in case they’re unlucky enough to have a spark land on their clothing. If you have a two or three story home, make sure each room has an exit plan in case of a fire. Purchase a fire escape ladder that can be easily unrolled and thrown over the windowsill as an exit route. If you have children, plan practice runs with them until they’re comfortable with going down the ladder and make sure they know never to hide in a closet or under their beds. After that, make sure to plan a practice every few months so that the routine remains fresh in everyone’s minds. Designate a meeting spot that’s far enough from the house to be clear of danger, like a neighbor’s yard. When your family is practicing escape routes, it’s also a great time to teach younger children how to dial 911 in case of an emergency. While you may have the number programmed into your phones, teach kids how to dial it on their own. They may need to use a phone without the speed dial programmed into it. It’s also a good idea to have a file of important documents, like birth and marriage certificates, insurance policies and bank account information in a fire-safe box or at a trusted friend or family member’s house. As a last resort, a bank safety deposit box works, but you may have limited access if your disaster occurs during non-business hours. If you use electric blankets, mattress pads or space heaters during the winter, turn them off before you go to sleep. If you must use a space heater, make sure it’s a newer model with an automatic shut off in case it overheats and make sure to place it out of the way of kids and pets. Smoking in bed or lying on the couch is a huge fire hazard and most people think they’ll never fall asleep with a cigarette burning, but it is common and should be avoided at all costs. In the bathroom, ensure that small appliances are unplugged when not in use. It’s also a good idea to purchase bathroom appliances with an automatic shut off feature so you don’t have to worry if you’ve forgotten to turn off a straightening or curling iron. Keep towels away from heaters and any appliances that can heat up. How Fires Outside The Home Start Fires outside the home can start for a variety of reasons. Some of reasons are: Wildfires Lightening strikes and other natural causes Gas line explosions Improper trash, leaves and grass burning Careless storage of matches Where And Why Wildfires Occur It’s not uncommon for people to think that wildfires only happen in California. Although wildfires have typically occurred in California, they can happen anywhere in the world. The perfect condition for wildfires is when there is enough rainfall to encourage the growth of trees and vegetation, but the climate also has dry, hot periods where branches and leaves can dry out and become flammable. Wildfires can also be common in grasslands and scrublands. Many people here the word wildfire and think there’s nothing that can be done to save their homes. This may be the case if you haven’t thought about making your home firesafe well before the fire is on its way, but there’s plenty that can be done ahead of time to save your home. Even if you aren’t located in a wildfire danger zone, it’s a good idea to take some simple steps to make your home safer from external fire. You never know when your neighbor’s home may break out in an uncontrollable fire and spread to yours. How To Firesafe Your Home From The Outside Externally, there’s a lot that can be done to protect the outside of your home from a fire. It’s a good idea to create a clear space of 30 feet all the way around your home. This means removing all flammable vegetation in that 30 foot area. This will drastically slow the onset of a fire to your home and may buy you valuable time to get the fire put out and save your home. Placing any wood piles more than 30 feet away from your home will also help. In addition to the 30 foot area of cleared vegetation, all homes should have another 70 feet of a ‘fuel reduction zone. ’ This simply means that you’re slowing down the speed of the fire and increasing the chance of stopping it all together before it reaches your house. This can be done two ways. If you’d like a mix of horizontal and vertical plants, alternate planting the tall and short plants. If you have all tall trees, they do not need to be cut down, as long as you remove the plants below them. Removing smaller plants that are directly underneath large trees eliminates a fire ladder and stops the rapid movement of the fire. It’s also a good idea to make sure any large trees are free of dead branches, leaves and needles. Remove them from your gutters and roof and make sure your chimney has at least a 10 foot clearance from any overhanging tree limbs. While these steps are the law in California, they can help anyone who would like to keep their home safe from the path of a large fire. Sadly, when wide spread fires break out and threaten homes, fire departments aren’t able to save everyone’s home. But there are a few simple things homeowners can do to protect the houses and their belongings inside before it’s time to evacuate. Homeowners can apply a product called Thermo-Gel to their homes. The gel can slow the speed of a fire by more than 75% when mixed with water and sprayed directly on homes and fences. The gel can be applied in five to eight hours in advance, meaning you can apply it and quickly get out of danger. It is used by several government agencies throughout California and the United States. A Fire Marshall Pool Pump is also available. The pump takes water directly out of your home pool or pond and uses that water to fight a fire. It comes with a 100 foot hose and can shoot up to 70 gallons of water a minute into a fire. Experts agree though, that when the call to evacuate comes, it’s a good idea to listen. Precautionary measures are great, but fighting a large fire is something best left to the professionals who have the appropriate firefighting equipment. Fires aren’t always preventable, but there are simple things that can be done to help reduce your risk. Taking these easy steps to lessen your risk is a great first step in fireproofing your home and keeping your family safe. If you are unlucky enough to be a victim of a fire, either inside or outside the home, you’ll take comfort in knowing you’ve done everything possible to keep your family safe.

Homes and businesses can have very different requirements when it comes to choosing appliances. Clearly, if your business is home-based, your appliance needs are equivalent to that of a residential home. Likewise, if you are running a large manufacturing company your needs are going to be different. Even so, home appliances and business appliances are basically the same. As the needs of all homes are pretty much the same, they all have the same basic appliances. Businesses, on the other hand can be very different, and have very different requirements. There are five basic, regular home appliances. These are the washer and dryer, stove, refrigerator and dishwasher. Other, smaller home appliances can include a microwave, coffee maker, kettle, toaster, blender, mixer, food processor, extra ranges and more. Businesses rarely have as many appliances as homes do, although, some businesses can require the same appliances only in more heavy-duty models. For example, in your home, the coffee maker is usually only turned on and run once in the morning. In a fair sized business, the coffee maker could be used five or ten times a day, or more for a larger business! When shopping for your home, you would probably buy a regular 12 cup coffee maker, but when shopping for a large business you would probably want to find something more durable and large in proportion to the amount of people that will be using it. A lot of businesses, including smaller ones have a kitchen in which there is usually a microwave, small fridge and a kettle. These are the same appliances that you would typically find in a residential home. The larger businesses may have a more full-sized kitchen with a stove and regular fridge. Some might even have a dishwasher! Businesses like manufacturing companies and factories are the ones that have the heavy duty appliances. Some of these appliances include very large freezers and refrigerators. Some factories like to provide frozen treats for their employees in the summer because of the lack of air conditioning, and as such, they need a much more heavy-duty freezer than a home would typically have. The fridges in these factories would also be much larger in order to house all of the lunches of the employees. Some homes with bigger families can have a large fridge, but not usually as large as the factory fridges. Another difference between home and business appliances is that appliance manufacturers will sometimes make the business appliances have a higher wattage than the appliances meant for homes. The reason for this is because business appliances are used a lot more often and in a larger capacity than appliances in the setting of a home. So, there is not much difference between home and business appliances. There only needs to be a difference if the business is large and has a lot of employees. Also, both of these types of appliances are bought at the same stores. It is very hard to find a store that only sells business appliances.

If you are serious about reducing your power use and being environmentally friendly, there are many small things you can do around the home to work towards “going green”.   Once you have made the obvious changes by insulating your home, turning down the thermostat and so on, there are still saving to be made.   It may sound like you are going too far, but really its more about living with some awareness. Once you have a few of these ideas under your belt, you can consider a DIY solar home project, growing your own veggies, or some passive solar ideas to your home.   We often take for granted that the flick of a switch or press of a button uses the same amount of power – NOT TRUE!Home appliance vary widely in what power they draw and it all adds up, and ends up costing you money, not to speak of affecting the environment.   So, here are a few small ideas to try out and see if they can be fitted into how you live and play at home. The 12 Sneaky Tricks List : Use your microwave or toaster oven to reheat or cook small portions – they use less power for small tasks.   You can reduce cooking energy by as much as 80 percent when using your microwave for small portions. Using your oven and cook top in the summer is adding a lot of heat to your home that your air conditioning has to counteract.   Consider an outdoor BBQ.   Grills are healthy, cook food quickly and are more energy efficient.   Eat more salads, they are healthy and “greens” have a much smaller environmental impact than growing animals for meat. The outdoor porch light is a not only convenient, sometimes it’s a security measure.   Consider a solar powered outdoor light, or at the least use a CFL with a motion sensor. While we are on the same idea,  always turn off your lights when leaving a room. Just one 60-watt incandescent bulb, on for eight hours a day, can save about $15 per year. Check your hot water taps.   Dripping hot water can waste about 5000lts/yr and waste the power used to replace and heat the lost water, costing up to $30/yr in electricity. We know that a normal shower uses less water than a bath, but a new shower head also will save energy. How? – because you don’t have to heat the water that is not used or has leaked away. For laundry, heating water for a hot wash uses about 90% of the energy consumed by the washer, while only 10% is used by the  motor.   So, wash with cold water, modern detergents are great for cold washes.   Switching to cold water will save about $30yr regardless of whether it is machine or tank heated water. Don’t forget those “stand-by” energy wasters. Computers and TV’s and so on can draw from a few watts to as much as 20 or more watts/hr for each item. Avoid using the screen saver on your computer, in that mode, your computer runs the monitor using more power, use a sleep mode instead. Are you cooking pasta tonight? Boil the water in a kettle and pour into your pot ready to cook it.   The kettle is faster and more efficient than your hot-plate. Plant trees to shade your home.   This reduces cooling costs in the summer months and reduces cold airflow around the house in the winter. Typically, newly planted trees will begin shading windows in their first year and will reach your roof in years 5-10. Try not to place hot dishes in the refrigerator as it will have to work harder to adjust the temperature. With these small changes and looking at how you use your car, homeowners can significantly cut household costs.   It may not be practical to replace your car, but you can certainly use it more efficiently, by combining journeys, keeping it maintained, driving slower and maybe even having a car free day.

We’ve all been hit in the pocket by rising electricity costs, at work and at home. The price of electricity is beyond our control, but it’s within our power to curb the amount of energy we consume. By following our power saving tips, you’ll be helping to reduce the impact on our fragile natural environment and preserve our planet’s resources.

First off, if you’re not using Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs), you should be. Compact fluorescent lamps use only about a third as much electricity as standard incandescents. According to some experts, if you substitute compact fluorescent bulbs for a quarter of the incandescents used in high-use areas, you can cut the amount of electricity you use on lighting by half. I have CFLs in every fixture in my house, except for the fridge, oven, microwave and two fluorescent tube fixtures that are built in.

Use task lighting instead of area lighting. If you’re doing something at a fixed location, such as your desk or workbench, you don’t need to have the entire room brightly lit. Use an LED task light, one of the excellent units, or some similar small fixture to put light only where you need it. A 25 or 40 watt CFL can provide ambient light in the room, and you’ll reap the savings.

Use appliances that are efficient and no larger than needed to do the job. For many cooking tasks, a microwave oven will do what you want to do and save a lot of energy doing it. If all you’re doing is heating up some fish sticks, don’t heat the huge oven in your range, just use the toaster oven. Save heating that big space for something that won’t fit in the toaster oven. It saves money to make two and freeze one for later. You can save even more money by not preheating your oven, just let the food bake a little longer.

You’ll use a lot less energy in the winter if you put a programmable thermostat on your heater and let the temperature in the house drop quite a bit at night. In winter, set the thermostat to 21 degrees C when you are awake and 17 degrees C when you are asleep. In summer, set the thermostat to 26 degrees C and use a ceiling fan to cool your place. When the temperature outside falls to at least two degrees lower than the temperature inside, you should “vent” your home – that is, open your windows to let cool air in.

You might give some thought to a “ solar clothes dryer” like Grandma used to do – using indoor or outdoor clotheslines to dry your clothes. It’s low maintenance, no moving parts and the sheets flapping in the breeze give the puppy something to play with. It’s not for everybody, but if you don’t mind going back a few years, the initial cost is lower and the energy use much less than an electric or gas dryer. Doesn’t work well on rainy days though. Not using an electric clothes dryer can save $50 per year.

One last thing you must do to save money on your electric bill is to eliminate phantom loads. What, you ask, is a phantom load? A phantom load is any device that is consuming energy when you think you’ve turned it off. It all started with “instant on” televisions back in the vacuum tube days. When you “turned off” the TV, the tube filaments still had power applied to them, and were costing you money. When you turned the TV “on”, you were only turning on the high voltage and the warm tubes went to work instantly.

It’s even worse today. Anything that has a remote control is a phantom load. Think about it. There has to be a circuit inside there waiting to get the wake-up call from the remote control. The clocks on VCRs, ranges, microwaves and other gadgets are all phantom loads. And they are costing you money.

The way to cure phantom loads is to put the devices on a switched outlet or a power strip. Or simply unplug them. Unplug your toaster, coffee maker, hair dyer, some televisions, and power strips. It is good to note that some appliances have memory stored in the IC chips within the units. If you do unplug these units you may loose stored information. One of the really nice aspects of energy conservation is that you get to choose how much you want to save. It’s up to you which, if any, phantom load devices you leave connected when you’re not using them. Just balance convenience against savings.

You now possess the knowledge to cut your monthly electric bill. It is difficult to say how much you can save by making these ten simple changes, but here is an example: A friend of mine, living in an apartment at the time, followed these same recommendations and saw a 30% reduction in his bill the first full month. It can be done. And you can do it.

There are many reasons to lower your electricity consumption: saving money now, preparing for future rate hikes, helping to improve air quality and limit global warming, or just reducing waste. With increases in the price of electricity and gas bills, these methods help you try and get cheaper bills and save money.

People had no problems finding home appliances on sale during the Christmas holiday shopping season. Finding sales throughout the year is not difficult for anyone shopping in a shopping mall because the appliances departments are decorated with sales banners and price discounts are marked on large cardboard placards directly on the appliances that are on sale. The marketing for the sales events are usually placed in the local newspaper or on automobiles in the mall parking lot. The retailers that sell home appliances exclusively will usually price appliances to sell from the first day they are placed on the sales floor. The large inventory of appliances gives retailers buying power and those savings are often passed on to customers in the form of huge discounts. Retailers know that homebuyers will usually replace all appliances if a home remodel is in progress and they want to gain favor by giving further discounts on appliances that are purchased in pairs or in sets. When shoppers begin finding home appliances on sale, there is a ritual that must be followed. Shoppers will routinely inspect certain appliances for dents or other defects in an effort to get the price reduced even further. Some appliance retailers will create a clearance aisle for damaged goods and customers can inspect these appliances as much as they want because there is ample room in the back of the sales floor where managers always find space to place damaged appliances. While shopping for appliances on sale, shoppers will also be looking for appliances that are designed to save money on energy costs throughout the year. Low prices on appliances on the sales floor might not mean real savings when the appliance is brought home. If the electrical costs at home will increase significantly due to an appliance equipped with a motor that continually runs, then the high power bills will be clear evidence that the appliance price was no bargain. Some features on home appliances will increase the cost of ownership and finding appliances like these, on sale, is not always a good bargain. Well-informed shoppers know which features will be convenient and which ones they will actually use throughout the week. The home appliances that are placed on sale are usually those with features that many shoppers are not impressed with. To save hundreds of dollars, many clever shoppers are able to live without filling a glass from a spout that comes through a refrigerator door. Throughout the year, families are sure to notice many sales on small appliances. People love the useful help that some appliances such as microwave ovens provide and can always find another place to put one. Appliance sales have allowed people to outfit recreational vehicles with small sized refrigerators at a great price, and allow these on the go revelers to entertain friends at every place they stop on their travel route. Home appliance sales bring fun and happiness to all outdoor enthusiasts because blenders, mixers and toaster ovens allow people to prepare foods quick and use the extra time enjoying activities outside of the home.