Home Safety Checklist For Dover

Being safe in your home should be your number one priority. But are you missing some key safety components? Take this home safety checklist for Dover and discover where your living space can use greater attention.

This guide starts with a few whole-house safety ideas, and then we whittle it down on a room level. Then, phone (302) 238-1722 or send in the form below to get your home set up.

Whole Home Safety Checklist for Dover

While you will want to take a individual room method for home safety in Dover, there are a few items that work for the entire house approach. These devices can sync together through a wireless hub, and oftentimes react to other things. You can also control every one of your home safety equipment using a mobile security app, such as ADT Control:

Monitored Security System: All your windows and doors should employ a sensor that warns you and your family to intrusion. When the alarm trips, your monitoring expert picks up the alert and quickly sends emergency personnel.

Smart Lights For Every Major Room: Of course, you can set your smart bulbs so your house is more eco-conscience. But smart lights can also allow you to remain safe throughout an emergency. Have your smart bulbs flash on when a sensor triggers to shoo off robbers or illuminate your way to a safe place.

Smart Thermostat: Like your smart lights, a smart thermostat in Dover can save you 10%-15% in utility spending. Also, it can start your exhaust fan when your alarms senses a fire.

Monitored Smoke Detectors: At the very least, you should have a fire alarm on every floor. You can increase your fire readiness by installing a monitored fire alarm that looks for unusual heat and smoke, and pings your 24-hour monitoring experts when it senses a fire.

Smart Locks: Every doorway that needs a deadbolt can use a smart lock. Now you may preset numbered codes to friends and family and receive notifications to your smartphone when the locks are used. Your smart lock can even automatically open, helping you to quickly get out if you have an emergency.

Family Room Safety Checklist For Dover

You’ll hang out most in your living room, so it may be the best area to start making your house safer. Highly sought after items, like a big screen or video games, probably reside in your family room, making it a tempting room for robbers. Begin with placing a motion detector or indoor camera by the doorway, then continue on with the following ideas:

Motion Sensors: By hanging motion sensors, you’ll hear a loud alarm anytime they detect unexpected movement in your living room. Look for motion sensors that ignore pet movements or you’ll see a tripped alarm every time your dog passes through for a drink of water.
Indoor Camera: An indoor security camera gives you a constant watch on your family room. Watch constant streams of everything so you can see what’s happening from the mobile app. Or speak with your kids in the living room with the two-way talk feature.
Surge Protector/Outlet Maintenance: Make sure you protect expensive electronics and quit overtaxing your outlets with a surge protector. For added comfort, set up a smart plug with a surge protector built-in.
Furniture Secured To The Wall: If you have babies or toddlers, you’ll need to bolt your entertainment center or other heavy furniture to your wall. This is extra crucial if your family room has carpet that could make objects extra wobbly.
Enhanced Locks For Sliding Glass Doors: If your family room has a sliding glass door that leads to a deck, patio, or outside porch, you already get that the door lock is usually thin. Use a custom lock, like a metal bar or small locks that secures the door to the bottom and top of the opening.

Kitchen Safety Checklist For Dover

The kitchen has room for items that can add safety and security to your house. Some of these items are also simple to add and should be found in the grocery store:

Fire Extinguisher: Fire can happen from a neglected pot or a towel that’s too close to a burner. Always store a fire extinguisher in close reach for any stove or oven emergencies.
Circuit Interrupter Box On Every Outlet: A circuit interrupter outlet should be installed on outlets where they’re by running water to lessen the chance of electrocution. That includes the plug outlets around your sink and kitchen counter. Since 1987, it’s been standard to have one circuit interrupter outlet per circuit. But for simplicity’s sake, you’ll want to have a single GFCI for every outlet.

Monitored Carbon Monoxide Detector: A carbon monoxide detector is handy in the kitchen if you use natural gas for the stove and oven. If your gas appliances malfunction, the carbon monoxide detector will emit a loud, buzzing siren and call your monitoring professional.
Clorox Wipes Or Spray: The largest safety problem in the kitchen is the invisible bacteria and protein that comes with uncooked meat and other foods. Always keep antiviral wipes or spray to clean your surfaces after preparing food.
Refrigerator/Freezer Alarm: The food items in the fridge have to stay at a chilly temperature to stay safe to eat. If you accidently leave the fridge or freezer door ajar, then a small beep will tell you to close the door. Some refrigerators already have a pre-installed alarm, older models won’t, and you’ll have to pick up a fridge alarm from the hardware store.

Bathroom Safety Checklist For Dover

Just because you may not have a bunch of square footage in your bathroom, you will still have safety issues. From flood detectors to medicine care, here are a few safety ideas for your bathroom:

Flood Detectors: A leaking sink or bathtub can cause a whole lot of water damage. Discover leaks early with a flood detector and save yourself from reflooring the entire bathroom.
Non-slip Shower Mats: A fall in the bathroom can be painful, causing pulled muscles, gashed heads, or sprained ankles. Make sure you avoid these issues with a textured bathroom mat for your wet feet.

Non-slip Bathtub Strips: Like a tiled floor, a bathtub can be a slippery area to move in. Make sure every tub has some no-slip stickies so your toes have a textured patch to gain traction.

Medicine Door Latch: If you have young kids or a family member with memory complications, you have to take extra care regarding prescription medicine. Hide away your bottles by using a medicine cabinet with a child-proof lock.

GFCI Circuits: Just like the kitchen, you will have to also use a safer GFCI outlet on every bathroom receptacle. This will stop the flow of the electric current if they ever get wet or you have a harmful spike from a hair dryer or curling iron.

Child’s Bedroom Safety Checklist For Dover

A child’s bedroom should pair safety with simplicity. If their window treatments or other things are safe but difficult to manage, then your child may get around the device with unsafe activities -- like scale a dresser -- to touch them. Here are some simple, and safe, ideas:

Cordless Window Treatments: Safety professionals have long called window treatment cords a secret hazard for kids and pets. Put in motorized treatments that kids can easily manage through a remote. Or even better, pair your shades to your ADT security system so they rise without anyone’s help at dawn, and go down at bedtime for added darkness.

Indoor Security Camera: A security camera placed on your kid’s desk or dresser can act as an HD baby monitor that you can watch with your phone. And if they want something, they can hit the 2-way talk feature included on the camera.

Plug Covers: While each outlet should use outlet safety caps on them for your small children, this is doubly needed in a child’s bedroom. It’s the main place in your home where your toddler will most likely be solo without constant parental supervision.

Window Safety Ladder: If you have bedrooms on an upper story, then you need to install a window fire ladder. These can help a child escape in case the hallway or downstairs are engulfed in smoke and fire. Just remember to practice how to unfurl the ladder at least twice a year.

Toy Box Or Low Shelves: It’s interesting to look at a toy box as a safety item, but you’ll understand if you’ve ever tramped on an action figure in your stocking feet. A clutter-free floor means a quick escape when there’s a safety or security event.

Master Bedroom Safety Checklist For Dover

The main bedroom should be a refuge, so let your safety devices give you peace of mind when you have an emergency event. After all, being startled awake by a high-decibel siren can be confusing.

Security System Touchscreen: Having a touchscreen on your dresser lets you see what’s happening without leaving your bed. You could always log into your ADT mobile app but, the HD touchscreen is often easier to manage to use when you’re coming out of sleep and disoriented.

Phone Charging Area: We rely on our smartphones for so many things now alarm clocks, news readers, time wasters, and sometimes even phones. The only problem is that a depleted cell will cut us off from the outside world if there’s a problem. To keep it nice and ready, a charging station or cord becomes an essential.

Nightlight/Smart Lights: A small light can be a beacon when you’re startled awake from a fire alarm or unexpected sounds. If you have trouble falling asleep with a small nightlight, use smart bulbs in your fixtures. Then you can get light simply with a button push or voice direction.
Fireproof Safe: Store your important paperwork like social security cards, stock certificates, or a spare checkbook in a fireproof lockbox. This can be a large one that is located out of the way or a smaller handheld safe that you can snatch when you leave during an emergency event.

Heat Sensor: The issue with most bedrooms is that they might run too hot or be chilly since they are far away from the thermostat. A temperature sensor will talk to your smart thermostat so you can have a nice, relaxing sleep at just the right temperature.

Garage/Basement Safety Checklist For Dover

Most safety needs in the garage or basement are with your water heater or heating system. Seeing problems at the source can stave away larger disasters later on. So, as you take a look around your storage areas, check over these crucial items:

Flood Detector Or Sump Pump Alarm: Putting a flood alarm next to your water heater or sump pump can stop you from finding a pond when you step into your garage or basement. The last you need is to lose the weekend drying your floor and going through all those ruined boxes.

CO Alarm: It’s smart to have a CO detector in areas where a CO leak can occur. If you employ a gas furnace, try to put a detector in the same room as your inbound pipes.
WiFi Water Shutoff Valve: If your flood detector senses a plumbing leak or a busted pipe, then you will have to shut off the primary water pipe immediately. With a WiFi shutoff valve, you can block water flow from any mobile device. That’s helpful when you’re visiting relatives and receive a flood sensor alert on your smartphone.
Garage Door Sensor: Leaving the garage door up brings about all sorts of headaches. You can lose heat or air through that large opening, and critters or intruders can just walk in. A sensor will text you about an open garage door and lets you close it through the app.
Temperature Sensor: A heat alarm in your basement or garage is handy if you wonder about freezing pipes. The temperature in these rooms can be wildly different than the main part of the home, so you will need to keep a constant look on the temperature through your mobile app.

Home Perimeter Safety Checklist for Dover

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

Doorbell Security Camera: See who’s arrived at the the front step before you answer it and talk to visitors. View package deliveries and review video clips if they are taken.

Outdoor Security Camera: You can hang outdoor cameras to guard against suspicious activity in your yard. These security cameras are especially useful in areas where you may not have a window installed -- like around a cellar or by the garage.

Window Height Shrubbery: Overgrown foliage can create some serenity, but they also hinder you seeing into the yard and curb. Don’t provide potential intruders a dark shadow to hide. Plus, tall shrubs or foliage around your home can clog gutters and bring in ants and termites.
ADT Yard Signs: One of the most popular discouragements for a break-in is advertising to would-be intruders that you use a monitored ADT security system. An ADT yard stick by the stoop and a window sticker will tell lurkers that they should keep walking to an less prepared target.

Motion Controlled Porch Lighting: Light is the biggest enemy to those who lurk in the unlit places. Motion-activated flood lights on your deck, patio, or garage can help scare possible intruders away. Lights also help you work the locks when you arrive to the house late at night.

Use Secure24 Alarm Systems To Help You With Your Home Safety Checklist for Dover

While Secure24 Alarm Systems can’t deliver every item on your Dover home safety checklist, we can bring you a powerful security system. With alarms, security cameras, and home automation, we can customize the ideal system for your home’s needs. Just phone (302) 238-1722 to get started or send in the form below. Or customize your own system with our Security System Designer.