Winter Safety Tips from the Chief

Winter Safety Tips from the Chief

Here are some helpful tips for keeping your home safe during the severe cold weather safety:

* Make sure your smoke and Carbon Monoxide and smoke detectors are operational.

* Do NOT use stoves or fuel-fired portable heaters (propane, kerosene, etc) to heat your living areas. These types of appliances need to be properly vented.

* Do NOT run your car while parked in the garage (EVEN if your overhead garage door is open). Carbon Monoxide can easily get into your home with the overhead door open or closed

* Make sure your furniture isn’t blocking your home’s heating vents.

* During severe cold, keep cabinet doors open to allow warm air to circulate around pipes, particularly those in the kitchen and bathrooms where plumbing runs through exterior walls.

* Keep a slow trickle of water flowing through faucets connected to pipes that run through unheated or unprotected spaces.

* Do NOT leave heating devices (heat guns, hair dryers, etc) operating while unattended in an effort to thaw frozen pipes.

* Keep your home thermostat set at a constant temperature during the severe cold snap. Many furnaces are not capable of “catching up” if they drop below a temperature during severe cold spells. By setting your thermostat to a constant temperature of 70 degrees as an example — in the sever cold weather, it is easier for your furnace to operate than if it is programmed to drop to 62 overnight, and then back up to 70 in the morning.

* Only burn dry cured firewood in your fireplace or woodburning stove. Make sure all flammables are cleared around the firebox and use a barrier (such as a screen) to protect embers from reaching any flammables.

We hope you all will keep warm and stay safe!

Take care,

Chief Cluchey