Keeping a house safe
This category covers tips and advice for keeping your home safe, including fire prevention, electrical safety, and fall prevention.
Written for the Philippines. In an emergency here, the number is 911.
Much of what helps prevent a house fire is routine: sockets and extension cords that are not overloaded, an LPG tank in a ventilated place, a stove nobody walked away from. The guide below is the disaster office's own list.
In this section
- Fire safety at home Eleven things that keep a fire from starting, and what to do in the minutes after one does. Includes stop, drop and roll, and the door-handle check. Read the guide
- Fire extinguisher types The five classes of fire and the extinguisher types the Philippine Fire Code allows for each, quoted by section and page. Read the guide
- Fire extinguisher colour code The Fire Code has none, so read the label. The British colour bands explained, and why a British C is not a Philippine C. Read the guide
- Fire extinguisher inspection The yearly check, what a service tag must say, mounting height, and how many a building needs, from the same Fire Code rules. Read the guide
- RA 9514, the Fire Code IRR Where to get the 2019 IRR from the BFP, and what it requires: the FSEC and FSIC, the rules for a house, the 13 prohibited acts and the steps to a closure order. Read the guide
- Fire drill procedure How often schools, offices, hotels and hospitals must drill, and the steps of a school fire drill, quoted from the Fire Code. Read the guide
- How to use a fire extinguisher Pull, aim, squeeze and sweep, and the three things a BFP officer taught at a government seminar to do before you pick one up. Read the guide
- Brownout vs blackout What the two words and NGCP's yellow and red alerts mean, then candles, generators and a flooded house, from Meralco, the BFP and the DOH. Read the guide
Electrical safety and fall prevention are not written yet
Both belong in this section and both are missing on purpose. This site publishes a safety instruction only when it can name and link the Philippine authority that issued it, and for those two subjects that source has not been found and read yet. Writing them from general knowledge would be quick and would make this page look complete, which is the reason not to.
Some of the ground is already covered. The brownout page has Meralco's steps for wiring in a flood and the DOH warning on generators. The fire guide deals with overloaded sockets, worn cables and unattended appliances. The earthquake guide covers strapping heavy furniture to walls and keeping breakables low.
Where part of it is already covered
Three guides on this site carry pieces of electrical and fall safety, each from the agency named on that page.
- Fire guide
- Overloaded sockets, worn cables and unattended appliances.
- Brownout guide
- Meralco's steps for wiring in a flood, and the DOH warning on generators.
- Earthquake guide
- Strapping heavy furniture to walls and keeping breakables low.
The part children change
Two instructions on this site exist because of children specifically, and both come from the agencies rather than from us. The fire guide says to keep candles, lighters and matches out of reach. UNICEF Philippines puts a whistle in the go bag for every family member including the children, and a comfort object for each child alongside the torch and the radio.
A drill is the other thing. The earthquake guide asks households to run one and take part in it. DepEd says frequent practice turns the right actions into automatic reflexes.
