While it’s exciting to bring the family over for Thanksgiving, you need to do more to keep your home safe. Issues tend to creep in when homeowners are prepared to host a ton of guests or don’t realize how crowded the house will be.
You’re cooking, decorating, and bringing lots of people through the door. With that in mind, these simple tips will help you protect your home and make wise decisions throughout the holiday season.
1.Test Fire Alarms
Testing your fire alarms is easier than ever. You can press the button on the alarm to know if the battery is operational. If not, you should change the batteries right away. This is a simple process, and you can check the fire alarms once a week in just a minutes.
2. Remain in the Kitchen
Someone needs to stay in the kitchen while you’re cooking. It doesn’t matter if they’re just watching a gravy heat up or stirring a sauce, they need to be there in case something goes wrong. Unattended cooking is one of the worst things you can do this holiday season.
3. Make Space for Cooking Equipment
If you have extra cooking equipment on the counter, you need to make space. Don’t pack everything together. Don’t load up electrical outlets. Use the fan on the range or over the stove.
It’s easy to knock over cooking equipment if it’s all sitting together. With space for everything, you can easily move around without walking on eggshells.
4. Where Are the Kids?
Kids stay out of the kitchen. Why? They want to play. They love missing school, but they are not capable of handling all the cooking gear that you’re running.
5. Decorate With Safety in Mind
Use surge protectors. Don’t load up outlets. Throw away old Christmas lights and replace them with safer, newer strands. Don’t set up candles around the house. Use LED lights where you can (as they emit no heat at all.)
Make sure that all the decorations you’ve set out can stand the test of time and don’t pose a safety risk. You might not notice right away, but you should check now and then to be sure you haven’t missed an obvious safety hazard.
6. Create an Emergency Plan
Create and post an emergency plan for your home. This plan should clearly lay out what to do in the event of a fire, flood, storm, etc. If you don’t have an emergency plan or don’t know where to start, reach out to our team for more information.
7. Watch Out for Pets
Move your pets to another part of the house so that they don’t get caught up in the cooking or decorating. You’re hosting a lot of people, and that means you don’t have time to watch your pets and make certain they’re making good decisions.
8. Turn to LED Bulbs
Use LED Lights because they produce no heat. This is the safest way to hang lights this holiday season. Most people may need to replace their old Christmas lights (even though they’ve had them for many years,) but this is safer than riding with older and older strands that simply don’t pass muster.
9. Service Your Heater or Furnace
Bring a professional out to the house to service your heater or furnace. You don’t want to consistently run an old furnace that could catch fire or worse. Plus, you don’t want the heater to break down at an inopportune time.
10. Don’t Deep Fry Your Turkey
Deep frying turkey is a fool’s errand, and anyone who has seen the award-winning show
Good Eatsknows that the setup for safely deep frying a turkey is so complex that no one has time for it.
Slide that turkey in the oven, set the temperature to 375, baste often, save the stuffing for the stovetop, and enjoy your Thanksgiving.
Contact Cormarc Insurance for More Home Safety Information
If your family needs help with home safety, our team at Cormac Insurance is happy to help. Make sure that you take these steps to heart and insure your home as carefully as possible. We can help you write the best homeowner’s insurance policy and offer additional coverages as needed.