I had never lit my stove and forgotten about it - until today!

Joful said:

After literally wearing out the lock button on my iPhone from constantly setting timers (remember... TWO stoves), I picked up one of these on Amazon:

Click to expand...

What kind of batteries does that take?

Knots said:

What kind of batteries does that take?

Click to expand...

A few AAA's, if I recall. Nothing special.

I'm kinda curious how you know your inner wall of the double wall was glowing...

ailanthus said:

This is a great reminder. I'm impressed with your 4 year old getting ready to evacuate - he's been taught well!

Click to expand...

That's impressive , that's some fine parenting skills.

Best part of this story . . . knowing that your son was doing the right thing.

Shmudda said:

I always let my lights on to the basement if the stove isn't set up right or not adjusted and running as it should be. I hate the electric bill, so that gives me great incentative to get the stove humming along as it should

Based on the OP description of no damage to the stove, one could say he just gave his chimney a very good cleaning. Scary way to do it though!

Craig

Click to expand...

This is exactly what I do in the mornings. Its a clear sign to me that things are not set to go before I leave the house.

It used to baffle the wife because I am a light nazi any other time... when I finally explained it to her she got it and now asks "What needs to be done to the stove" when the light is on but Im not down there..

I've done it twice before. I figure at least I know my install is solid!
I do the phone timer ritual in the morning when I'm getting ready for work since I have an amazing ability to forget stuff. I forgot my whole briefcase with laptop at home this morning, not the first or last time...
Other issue is that I sometimes hand off stove duties to my wife before it's cruising. If it's a slow start it may be 10 mins or so before she needs to turn down the air.
I just put one of those cube timers Joful posted in my Amazon cart. Can't get much easier than that!

... and I told my family we will be doing fire drill training this evening, thanks to Andrew's story. Our son is 5, and it's something I've been meaning to do the last few months. We'll have to wait until the ice melts off the porch roof to actually practice a window escape, but we can discuss plans, outside meeting place, etc.

Any wisdom to share on that subject, Jake?

Joful said:

... and I told my family we will be doing fire drill training this evening, thanks to Andrew's story. Our son is 5, and it's something I've been meaning to do the last few months. We'll have to wait until the ice melts off the porch roof to actually practice a window escape, but we can discuss plans, outside meeting place, etc.

Any wisdom to share on that subject, Jake?

Click to expand...

Actually yeah . . . a couple of thoughts.

As I started reading this (before I even saw my name mentioned) I thought to myself, "Yes. Because of Andrew someone else has taken action to developing good fire safety habits." Stories like this truly make me happy . . . having had to help do body recovery on three young children who died in a fire and having been involved in the after math of another fire that left two children dead . . . trust me . . . no fire scene where folks die is a good scene . . . but when children die . . . it is the absolute worse day.

Thank you for teaching your son right.

Make it a game . . . make it fun . . . at this age your son will listen to you and play the "game." Just be sure to emphasize that he should not wait for you or any other adults to come get him.

Light smoke . . . crawl low and go out the first and main exit to the meeting place and wait for everyone to leave the home. Do not go back inside for people, pets or personal possessions.

Heavy smoke or flames . . . go out the second exit . . . which may be another door depending on the home's lay out or a window. I probably wouldn't practice the window escape -- just talk about it. Truthfully, with working smoke detectors in the home you should have enough time to get out the main exit . . . the problem often is that folks don't have working smoke detectors (1 in 5 don't work -- typically because they've been disabled.)

Speaking of detectors . . . a worthwhile (but a little bit mean) experiment to conduct sometime is to set off the detector in the hallway outside of your son's bedroom and see if he reacts to it. Studies have shown that some children do not respond to the particular pitch and tone of some smoke detectors and can sleep right through the alarm. Newer alarms coming out have a different, alternating alarm which may work better (your home may already have these) . . . alarms that speak seem to work even better with young children (again, your home may have these as well).

Knowing how to dial 911 and giving out the address is a good thing to learn. There are many stories -- including here -- where a young child dialed 911 (typically on a medical emergency) and a parent or grandparent was helped thanks to that child not panicking and knowing what to do.

And then of course . . . if your clothes are on fire . . . stop, drop to the ground, cover your face and roll . . . or if your clothes are on fire . . . don't attempt to put them on.

Great advice, Jake. My father was a firefighter when he was young, and then did fire investigations for insurance companies as part of his engineering business later in life, so I've seen the aftermath of many fires myself. Probably because of this, we have almost 20 smoke and fire alarms on two different systems, one being hardwired to the house with comm between the alarms and the other being part of our centrally-monitored home security system. I just recently replaced all alarms on the hardwired system with talking CO & smoke alarms, so we should be pretty well set in that department.

The reason for my concern with the window and roof escape is that our windows are too complex for children. Even after showing him how to open the windows, I seriously doubt he will ever be able to do it, but our bedroom door is directly across the hall from his, so it's hopefully never an issue. He's not quite strong enough to throw a chair thru a window, just yet.

I plan to choose our closest neighbor's front stoop as our meeting place if we escape separately, first so the kids can wake them up if there's ever a serious problem, and second because it's safely behind our house and far away from any approaching emergency vehicles.

Joful said:

He's not quite strong enough to throw a chair thru a window, just yet.

Click to expand...

Please let me know when you are ready to run that part of the drill! JK, it's a good thing you're doing.

Built my home in the 70's. Hardwired fire detectors in each bedroom. Friday night, about 9 PM, shortly after the kids are all asleep every bloody detector in the house goes off. The noise just about broke my ear drums. I ran from room to room, waking the kids, looking for any sign of fire as I went. The kids ALL slept right through the alarms. They were, I swear, loud enough to do damage to your hearing.

Get the kids outside, mosquitoes fierce, check everywhere, nothing. Shut the breakers and turn them back on. No alarm.

Wash, rinse, repeat same time Saturday night. And the following Friday. Turns out, summers we had enough weekend residents who stop cooking etc at around 9 for a power surge that sets off the alarms. Fun and games.

But the scary thing, which was good to learn, was that the alarms did NOT wake the children.

Have a look at the Auber digital thermometer. You can set it to any temperature you want and it will let out the same ear piercing alarm as a smoke detector. It has saved my bacon a few times.
You can use it as a flue probe or a surface probe. Having a constant digital read out is really great.

direct (cheaper) http://www.auberins.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=17&products_id=292
ebay listing: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Thermometer-for-Stove-Pipe-Chimney-with-Remote-Alarm-/200900534134

BTW, when my smoke detector went off, it was the paint from the stove pipes that caused it. No smoke but an awful smell of cooked paint.

Just finished lesson 1. He had more questions than I expected. We'll repeat this weekend to re-enforce, and every few weeks until we're sure he has it down.

Just be sure to not scare him . . . fire safety education (like most safety lessons) is most effective when folks don't attempt to use BS or scare tactics.

For his "graduation" stop by the local firehouse (you may want to call first) and get a personal tour of the fire station and trucks . . . I suspect he would like that . . . and it gives him an additional reinforcement . . . either the firefighters can test him on his knowledge or they can offer up their own mini fire safety lesson as they do the tour (i.e. "Say, do you know what to do if you hear the smoke alarm go off?" . . . as you probably know, kids love to demonstrate their knowledge of a subject.)

From a new wood burner thanks for the reminder! Glad to read everything turned out ok. Good job preparing your son to know what to do.

firefighterjake said:

Just be sure to not scare him . . . fire safety education (like most safety lessons) is most effective when folks don't attempt to use BS or scare tactics.

Click to expand...

Yeah... about that. He's a quiet kid, who likes to ponder things a while on his own, and then he'll hit you with a question an hour (or three days) later.

So, I'm getting him ready for bed an hour after we're done with the fire talk, and he starts asking all these follow up questions, like what to do if dad's on fire, etc. Then he starts crying, and asking who will take care of him if mommy and daddy die in a fire. Not exactly what I had planned.

I'm sure there will be more questions tomorrow... or ten days from now.