In this blog entry, the Chicago garage door and garage door opener repair team here at Garage Door Repair Chicago will detail essential garage fire safety tips for homeowners
Garage Cleaning
Make sure clutter is removed from your garage. Go through your garage and remove all clutter that you haven’t used in a year. Separate items into keeping, selling, donating, and trash boxes. The faster you deal with these items the better. This makes sure there’s less fuel in your garage in the event of a fire, and makes it easier to find items in your garage.
Removing Flammable Stuff
Make sure to remove flammable items like paints, varnishes, gas, and much more. Pif you need to keep these items, keep them in a contained shed inside your garage that protects them from being exposed to heat sources, and minimize the amount of VOCs that you might inhale. NEVER place items like this near space heaters.
Garage Codes
Bring your garage up to code. Inspect and remove potential fire hazards. Make sure exits are fully accessible. Consider installing Type X gypsum boards on walls and ceilings to protect from fire. If you heaven old women down garage door, replace it with a high quality modern and fire rated garage door.
Appliance Safety
Make sure to only plug in one appliance per outlet to avoid the risk of overheating and shorts. Always use extension cords if you do this – but only temporarily, as when you use them over a long period of time it increases the risk of overheating and fires breaking out.
Garage Alarms
Make sure that your garage has a smoke detector as well as a carbon monoxide detector. Make sure these alarms have battery backups, and test them twice a year at least to make sure that they are properly working.
Vehicle Maintenance
Regularly maintain your vehicle so you can catch any potential issues, especially engine issues, as soon as they occur, lowering the chances that these issues will snowball and cause a potential fire. This will also power potential repair bills and increase the longevity of your vehicle.
FIre Extinguishers
ALWAYS keep a fire extinguisher in your vehicle. This is NON-NEGOTIABLE. Make sure to have a range of fire extinguishers on hand, and that if there’s a fire that you use the proper extinguisher. Electric fires and oil fires use different extinguishers than typical paper or wood fires.
