Family sitting around table having a holiday dinner

KEEP YOUR HOLIDAYS ACCIDENT-FREE WITH THESE SAFETY TIPS

Family sitting around table having a holiday dinner

Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays are soon to be upon us. This festive season provides a great opportunity to celebrate with family and friends and partake in delicious food, but it also provides an opportunity for accidents to happen. With the hustle and bustle of the season, it’s easy for things to get out of control, we know we’ve seen it happen in the past. We want you to have a safe and enjoyable season this year, so we’ve compiled a few safety tips to help you avoid some common holiday-related accidents.

Holidays just aren’t the holidays without food. Because you’ll probably be spending an above-average amount of time in the kitchen, fire safety should be high on your priority list.

Consider this: Thanksgiving is the peak day for home cooking fires, followed by Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, and the day before Thanksgiving. Don’t become a part of the statistic. Follow these safety precautions to ensure you don’t end up with a fire in your kitchen:

  • Never leave a lit stove/oven unattended. Some people like to leave their turkey in the oven while they run a few errands, or go over to the neighbor’s house, or something else, but this is a terrible idea. Even if you don’t want to remain in the kitchen the entire time, never leave the house.
  • Keep children away from the stove. Heat and kids don’t go together so to prevent injuries and a possible fire, opt kids out of the kitchen duties.
  • Keep knives and matches/lighters out of the reach of children.
  • Never leave lit candles unattended.
  • Fairy lights and electricity-powered Christmas decorations often give off heat, and so you should plug these out whenever you go to bed/leave the house. You should also try to avoid placing them close by to flammable materials/ items that could easily ignite.
  • Make sure your smoke detectors are working. You can easily test this by pushing the test button.

While fires get the bad rep during the holidays, they aren’t the only type of damage that can occur. If you’ve got guests over this holiday, the potential for water damage goes up for a few reasons:

  • Strained plumbing - With more people showering and using the bathroom than your plumbing is accustomed to, drains can become backed up and toilets can get clogged resulting in overflow.
  • Floods - The possibility of a bathtub/sink overflowing doubles with the more people in the house. If you’re in a particularly snowy climate, beware of guests tracking in the snow with their coats and shoes, as this will eventually melt and cause water to lodge in your home.
  • Guests trying to work your appliances - Your houseguest might decide they want to do some laundry, but they’re not familiar with your washer and its settings. Before you know it, the whole thing overflows and leaves an impossible-to-see-through suds cloud. A familiar scene in the movies, it also happens in real life and can also occur with other appliances, like your dishwasher. Warn your guests if there are any special instructions for operating your appliances and remind them that asking for help isn’t going to kill them.

So far, we’ve focused mostly on man-made accidents that can happen due to the number of people and work going on this season, but you should also be on the lookout for natural disasters. Depending on where you reside, you might get hit by snowstorms/blizzards, flooding, tornadoes or severe weather storms and with them a ton of property damage. Keep an eye out for weather warnings and make sure you’re taking the necessary precautions to ensure you don’t suffer, or only suffer minimal damage during a storm.

The holidays are the time of year where you should be enjoying family, friends, food, shopping, decorating and so much more. They are not the time of year to be thinking about recovering from an accident, especially one that was avoidable. Have a safe and enjoyable holiday season, but if an accident does happen, we’re here for you. We can help you recover from water damage, fire damage, and more. No project is too big or too small. Save our 24/7 emergency response numbers - (844) ROCK-911 | (585)413-1566 - and remember that we’re in this together!

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