How to Fireproof Your Home
You can't prevent a wildfire from starting but there are some things you can do to fireproof your home, increase the safety of your loved ones, protect your personal belongings, and minimize the risks. Here are some of the most successful steps you can take:
Create A Fireproof Barrier Around Your Home
By creating a fireproof barrier you can prevent the fire from entering your house. Start by using fire-resistant materials for your driveways or patio such as concrete, stone, or gravel. Create a fuel break that is at least 30 feet wide. That area should consist of materials such as stone or gravel. That area should be free of small trees, dry vegetation, and household debris.
Make sure to keep your plants watered since they don't burn as easily as dry plants. In terms of gardening, use fire-resistant plants that don't allow the fire to spread as easily, these plants include French lavender, California lilac, ornamental strawberry, honeysuckle, and yellow ice plant. The plants should also contain little oil content and have leaves that stay moist.
Pay attention to your backyard as well, wood fencing and wood decking have fame of fueling fires, you should treat the wood with fire-resistant coating or opt for composites, which spread fire slower.
Improve Access To Your Home
You need to make sure firefighters can easily access your home in case of fire. If you use a gate with a strong lock leave a spare with the local fire department. Put a sign at the entrance of your property with the house number and road name, the letters should be large and easy-to-read. The roads should be two-way with broad shoulders so the fire trucks can go through.
Protect Your Windows
Use metal frames that can prevent the fire from entering the house, wooden frames are more common but they also burn easily. Windows will easily break once they are exposed to fire so if your house is located in a wildfire-prone area, use double-paned glass windows, they are more resistant to heat.
Tempered glass is also a great choice for you, it is more resistant to breakage from heat than single-paned windows, use it for the largest windows in your house.
Wire glass or fire safety glass is a nice option as well since they hold together even after being cracked by heat. You can go further and protect the outside of the windows with fireproof shutters.
Protect Your Roof
Roofs are highly exposed to sparks which can easily start a fire so choose a roofing material that is more resistant to fire such as metal, tiles, and fiberglass. Avoid less protective materials such as asphalt shingles and wood. You can coat the roof with fire-retardants but make sure to apply them at regular intervals.
Make sure to cover the exterior attic and underfloors vent with wire mesh to prevent the sparks from entering your home. Go for metal gutters instead of vinyl ones which aren't fire resistant and could easily melt when exposed to fire. Always make sure to clean gutters, debris can easily catch fire.
Have Your Dryer Vents Cleaned By A Professional
The dryer vents are often an overlook fire hazard, dryer vents are properly vented and those vents aren't clean often, and if we combined it with the high heat discharge of those machines, it makes it easy to create a fire. Instead of attempting to clean the dryer vents yourself, you should trust a professional company that is capable of cleaning the entire dry venting system in a short amount of time.
Our Las Vegas dryer vent cleaning experts will clean your vents to help keep you better protected against home fires. You should have your dryer vents cleaned at least once every other year.
Install Effective Fire Alarms
A fire alarm is key to ensure the safety of your family, it has the main purpose of alerting your loved ones of a fire inside the house. Most of the time you won't be in the same area where the fire starts or closes, so smoke detectors can alert you even if you are asleep so you have enough time to address the issue and get out of the house.
A monitored fire alarm will even send an alarm to the alarm center and dispatch a fire department to your home, even if you aren't at home the alarm will still send an alert and dispatch the fire and emergency department to your home. This will minimize the damage to your home. Check the alarm at least twice a year.
Call us today for a professional dryer vent cleaning!