Remodelling and Landscape Tips to Protect Your Home Against Fire

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As a homeowner, you’re always looking for ways to protect your home from damage. For example, you likely have your eye on the creaky old tree in the front yard, or you check the basement for leaks every time it rains. You know that the cost of repairs is never cheap, whether it’s a weekend of your time or a big bill from a contractor to fix up the damage. 

One of the most significant perils homeowners face is fires. Kitchen fires, fires that spread from a neighbour’s house, or wildfires are all serious concerns. Left out of control, these types of fire can quickly destroy your entire home, ruin your belongings, and even put your family’s lives at risk. 

Even in the best-case scenario, filing a claim on your home insurance can be stressful. Law firms can help you secure the full amount owed by the insurance company, but fixing the damage can still be expensive and your policy may not provide enough coverage, leaving you out of pocket to repair your home and/or replace your belongings.

Basic fire safety tips include steps like regularly replacing the batteries in your smoke detectors and going through a home fire escape plan with your kids. However, there are also innovative remodelling and landscaping ideas that can help protect your home from fires in the first place, whether you’re concerned about a fire breaking out inside or spreading from the exterior. 

Proofing Against Fires that Start Indoors

Approximately 30% of all fires start in residential structures, and reducing the risks or mitigating the damage that can be done by an interior fire can go a long way toward protecting your home.

Many fire safety tips focus on behavioural changes that will reduce fire risks, such as avoiding the use of candles and never leaving cooking unattended. However, there are some home renovations you can undertake to mitigate damage and prevent fires in the first place.

One way to reduce kitchen fires is to remodel to give yourself more space to move. Make sure that you can hang things like dish towels and oven mitts well away from cooking sources.

Updating your electrical work to meet modern safety standards is by far one of the best ways to reduce the risk of a fire starting in your own home. Twenty percent of all house fires are due to faulty electrical work.

How to Protect Against Wildfires

A growing risk in many places is the risk of wildfires. As wildfire season becomes longer and more intense, more homeowners are looking for ways to protect themselves.

While building codes have already done most of the work of protecting your home against interior fires, there are a number of optional improvements that you can make to stop wildfires from leaping from the treeline or from other properties to your own. Some examples include:

• Using fire-resistant roof materials such as coated asphalt or metal.
• Fire-resistant soffits and eaves.
• Tempered glass windows and vent covers that are resistant to embers.
• Fire-resistant garage doors with weatherstripping to keep out embers.

Landscaping is another powerful tactic for protecting your home against wildfire spread. Implementing the concept of “defensible space” in your front and back yards involves keeping plant life away from your home, including grass, shrubs, and trees. Instead, keep plants closer to the edges of your property.

Not only can renovations like these reduce the odds of a fire in your home, but they may even reduce your insurance premiums. Let your insurance company know if you make any of these larger changes such as updating the roof material to use fire-proof materials.