Kent Fire Department<\/a> offers the following basic safety tips to help reduce the chance of a fire in your home being caused by a furnace, fireplace, woodstove, baseboard heater, or other home heating device.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u2022 Have your furnace professionally inspected annually to ensure that it is working properly. Debris, birds, or rodents can block furnace exhausts and ducting can become clogged over time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Ensure that fireplaces and woodstoves are also inspected regularly. Flues\/chimneys can become clogged with creosote and need to be cleaned periodically.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Keep all combustibles at least three feet away from baseboard heaters, radiant heater, and any kind of free-standing wood or pellet stove. This includes bedding materials, curtains, and clothing that may have moved closer during the summer months.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Always have a screen or glass doors in front of your fireplace to reduce the chances of any stray sparks or logs from escaping.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Never use charcoal in a fireplace or wood stove. Charcoal emits high levels of carbon monoxide. Also, use dry, well-seasoned wood when burning. Wet or green wood will not burn easily and will produce more smoke.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Never use flammable liquids to start a fire in your fireplace.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Always have working smoke alarms in your home. Change the batteries and vacuum them annually. Smoke alarms have a life-expectancy of approximately 10 years. If yours are older than that, or you are not sure \u2013 replace them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Keep a fire extinguisher handy. A 2A-10BC extinguisher is perfect for a typical home. Read the instructions on its use ahead of time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 If any of your household appliances (including your hot water tank and clothes dryer) is fueled by natural gas or propane, consider installing a carbon monoxide alarm. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless gas which is a by-product of burning. When it gets into the air in your home due to a malfunctioning appliance, it can cause headaches, nausea, dizziness, and in extreme cases, unconsciousness and death.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that fall is officially here it is time to start considering the health and safety of using furnaces or other types of indoor heating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}