Home Safety Checklist For Evansville

Keeping safe in your home should be your topmost priority. But are you overlooking some big safety items? Take this home safety checklist for Evansville and discover where your house requires some work.

We give you a few whole-house safety items, and then we whittle it down room-by-room. Then, contact (812) 200-5693 or fill out the form below for additional information.

Basic Home Safety Checklist for Evansville

While you should use a room-by-room approach to home safety in Evansville, there are a few items that work for multiple rooms. These components can talk with one another through a wireless hub, and often can work off other things. You might also control each of your home safety equipment using a smartphone app, such as ADT Control:

Monitored Security System: Each one of your doors and windows should employ a sensor that alerts you to forced entry. When an alarm trips, your monitoring center picks up the call and immediately calls emergency personnel.

Smart Lights For Every Major Room: Sure, you can program your smart lights to become more efficient. But smart lights can also help you stay safe during an emergency. Make your downstairs lights flip on when an alarm trips to frighten off burglars or light a path to a secure place.

Smart Thermostat: Like your smart lights, a smart thermostat in Evansville can save you 10%-15% in energy costs. But it also can flip on your exhaust fan when your alarms senses a fire.

Monitored Fire Alarms: It’s code that you need to have a smoke detector on every level. You can improve your fire readiness by hanging a monitored fire detector that senses both smoke and heat, and pings your 24/7 monitoring team when it thinks that there’s a fire.

Smart Door Locks: Every doorway that needs a deadbolt can be made safer with a smart door lock. Now you may program codes to family and friends and receive alerts to your mobile device when your locks are unlocked. Your doors can even automatically unlock, helping you to quickly get out when you have an emergency.

Living Room/Family Room Safety Checklist For Evansville

You’ll spend a lot of time in your living room, so it may be the best area to start your home safety optimization. Popular items, like a TV or stereo system, usually sit in your family room, making it an alluring room for thieves. Begin with hanging a motion sensor or indoor camera by the doorway, then continue on with all these safety protocols:

Motion Detectors: By hanging motion sensors, you’ll have a shrieking alarm whenever they detect suspicious movement in your family room. You’ll want motion sensors that filter out a dog or cat or you’ll have an alert each time your cat comes in for a bite of food.
Indoor Security Camera: An indoor security camera puts a visual on your family room. Get constant streams of your room so you can find out what’s going on through the mobile app. Or chat with your family in the family room by using the two-way talk feature.
Surge Protector/Outlet Maintenance: Make sure you protect those electronics and stop overtaxing your electric system with a surge protector. For additional convenience, use a smart plug with anti-surge functionality included.
Entertainment Center Secured To The Wall: If you have any small children, you’ll need to bolt your entertainment center or other heavy furniture to a wall. This is especially important if your living room has carpeting that could make objects extra wobbly.
Enhanced Locks For Sliding Glass Doors: If your living room uses a sliding door that slides out to a backyard, deck, or outside porch, you already can see that the door lock is pretty thin. Install an enhanced lock, like a cross bar or locks that are located on the bottom and top of the frame.

Kitchen Safety Checklist For Evansville

The kitchen has room for items that can provide comfort and safety to your home. Many of these items should be easy to add and can be found in the Target or Walmart:

Fire Extinguisher: Fire can come from from a neglected skillet or a faulty burner. Always store a fire extinguisher at hand for any stove or oven emergencies.
Circuit Interrupter Box On Each Outlet: A GFCI outlet should be used on outlets where they’re by water to ward off an electric shock. That includes the outlets by your sink and kitchen counter. Since 1987, it’s been code to have one GFCI per circuit. But all your plugs will flip off if any outlet senses a surge, so try to install a separate GFCI on each outlet.

Monitored Carbon Monoxide Detector: A carbon monoxide detector is needed in spaces that have gas for the oven and stove. If your gas lines spring a leak, the carbon monoxide detector will emit a loud sound and ping your monitoring agent.
Clorox Wipes Or Spray: The largest safety hazard in the kitchen is the invisible bacteria and cross-contamination from raw meat and dairy. Always keep cleaning wipes or a bleach spray to sanitize your counters after preparing food.
Refrigerator Alarm: The food items in your fridge need to remain at a cold temperature to be safe to eat. If you accidently leave the fridge or freezer door open, then a constant beep will remind you to close the door. Some appliances already have an alarm, some do not, and you’ll have to get a refrigerator alarm from online.

Bathroom Safety Checklist For Evansville

Just because there’s not a lot of space in your bathroom, you will still have safety hazards. From water problems to electric safety, here are some safety tips for your bathroom:

Flood Detectors: A leaking sink or shower can lead to an expensive amount of damage. Find a water problem with a flood detector and save the time and money from water damage.
Textured Bath Mats: A slip in the bathroom can be devastating, causing cuts, gashed heads, or trips to the hospital. Or avoid these issues with a no-slip bathroom mat for your wet feet.

Textured Bathtub Stickers: Like a tiled floor, a bathtub can be a slippery area to move in. Make sure every tub has some non-slip stickers so your feet and toes have a bumpy patch for stability.

Medicine Door Lock: If you have curious toddlers or anyone with memory lapses, you have to take extra precautions regarding medicine. Secure your bottles by installing a medicine cabinet with a latch that locks.

GFCI Circuits: Just like the kitchen, you will have to also install a safer GFCI outlet on each bathroom outlet. These will shut off the electric current if water enters the outlet or you have a harmful spike from an electric razor or hair dryer.

Children’s Bedroom Safety Checklist For Evansville

A child’s bedroom should balance safety with accessibility. If their window treatments or other items are safe but hard to use, then your children may perform unsafe methods -- like shimmying up a bookshelf -- to open them. Try these straightforward, and safe, ideas:

No Cord Window Treatments: Safety experts have designated cords from shades and blinds a secret problem for both children and pets. Put in motorized treatments that your child can easily open and close via remote control. Or better yet, pair your motorized coverings to your security system so they rise automatically at dawn, and close in the evening for added darkness.

Indoor Security Camera: An indoor security camera sitting on your child’s dresser can double as an HD baby monitor that you can watch with your phone. And if they need you, they can push the two-way talk feature on the camera.

Outlet Plug Covers: While each outlet should use covers on them when you have little children, this is doubly needed in their bedroom. It’s the main place in your house where your child will most likely play by themselves without consistent additional supervision.

Window Escape Ladder: If you use bedrooms on above the first story, then you will want to put in a window fire ladder. These should let your children leave the house when the hallway or ground floor are engulfed in smoke and fire. Make sure to rehearse how to unfurl the ladder at least twice a year.

Toy Chest Or Low Shelves: It’s interesting to look at a toy chest as a safety component, but you’ll understand if you’ve ever walked on a Lego in your socked feet. A clutter-free floor means a quick escape if there’s a safety or security event.

Master Bedroom Safety Checklist For Evansville

The bedroom should be your calm space, so let your safety devices give you peace of mind when you experience an emergency. After all, being jerked awake by a loud alarm can be quite a shock.

Smart Hub Touchscreen: Having a touchscreen on your nightstand gives you a sense of what’s happening without getting out of bed. You could alternatively turn on your ADT smartphone app. However, the large touchscreen may be easier to manage to use when you’re yawning and finding your bearings.

Personal Charging Stand: We depend on our phones for almost everything now alarms, news readers, game machines, and --legend has it-- even phones. However, an uncharged phone in the middle of the night cuts us off from communications if there’s a problem. So, a charging station or cord is an essential.

Nightlight/Smart Lights: A small light helps ground you when you’re startled awake from a siren or unexpected noises. If you have trouble falling asleep with an outlet light, install a smart bulb in your bedroom. Then you can have light simply with a mobile device or voice command.
Fireproof Lockbox: Store your essential paperwork like social security cards, passports, or banking information in a fireproof lockbox. Your lockbox can be a bigger one that is located in your closet or a small handheld safe that you can snatch when you leave during a fire or other emergency.

Heat Sensor: The problem with bedrooms is that they might run too stuffy or be chilly since they sit far from the thermostat. A temperature sensor will communicate to your smart thermostat so you should have a comfortable, restful sleep at the perfect temperature.

Garage/Basement Safety Checklist For Evansville

Most safety issues in the basement or garage are with your pipes or heating system. Seeing hazards early can stop more devastating disasters in the future. So, as you take a look around your storage areas, pay attention to these critical items:

Flood Detector Or Sump Pump Alarm: Placing a flood sensor by your water heater or sump pump can stop you from discovering a lake when you walk into your basement or garage. The last you need is to spend the weekend bailing out water and sorting through all those soggy boxes.

Carbon Monoxide Detector: It’s beneficial to install a carbon monoxide alarm in a place where a gas leak can happen. If you use a gas furnace, you should hang an alarm in the same room as your HVAC unit.
Remote Water Shutoff Valve: If your flood sensor senses a plumbing leak or a busted pipe, then you will have to shut off the primary water pipe at once. With a remote shutoff valve, you can turn off your water flow from any mobile device. That’s nice when you’re visiting relatives and receive a water leak alert on your smartphone.
Garage Door Sensor: Leaving the garage door up causes all sorts of headaches. You can lose a bunch of heat or air through that large opening, and rodents or thieves can just wander in. A remote sensor will alert you to a forgotten garage door and allow you to close it remotely.
Heat Sensor: A temperature alarm in your basement or garage is a definite if you wonder about frozen pipes. The temperature in these areas can be drastically different than your main rooms of the house, so you will want to maintain a closer eye on the temp by using your security mobile app.

Home Perimeter Safety Checklist for Evansville

Your front yard, driveway, and front walk are just as imperative to make safe as the interior of your home. Try the items on this checklist to create a safe outside:

Doorbell Camera: See who’s at the front door before you open it and talk to guests. View packages and review video clips if they disappear.

Outdoor Security Camera: You can install outdoor security cameras to guard against late night lurkers in your yard. These devices are nice in areas where you may not have a window -- like a side yard or by the driveway.

Low Shrubs: Overgrown bushes can offer some solitude, but they also hinder your line of sight of the yard and curb. Don’t give potential intruders a place to hide. Plus, high bushes or greenery around your house can obstruct gutters and summon pests.
ADT Signs And Decals: One of the biggest disincentives for home intrusion is telling would-be burglars that you use an updated security system. An ADT yard stick by the stoop and a window cling will alert lurkers that they ought to move on to an unprotected score.

Motion Controlled Porch Light Fixtures: Light is the biggest obstacle to those who skulk in the shadows. Motion-controlled lighting on your porch, garage, or deck can help scare lurkers away. They also help you get inside when you arrive home late at night.

Call Secure24 Alarm Systems To Help Complete Your Home Safety Checklist for Evansville

While Secure24 Alarm Systems can’t help you with every item on your Evansville home safety checklist, we can discuss a state-of-the-art home security. With everything from alarms to thermostats, we can customize the best system for your house’s needs. Simply phone (812) 200-5693 and talk to a professional or fill out the form below. Or personalize your own system with our Security System Designer.