FIRE SAFETY PART TWO
The man was supposed to arrive at 7 p.m. He didn’t. We got a call and another man was coming instead. Mike had spent over 8 hours in full battle gear lying in the dirt in 100* weather – he wasn’t in a great mood. The man arrived at our home shortly after 8 p.m. – more than an hour late.
He did talk with the kids about some fire safety things (scared them but I’ll work on that). He gave us a sheet of things to do for a fire drill etc. He walked through the house with us to determine what we needed. He gave us a figure of $4800+ to buy smoke/fire detectors and heat detectors. WHEW.
We DID learn a lot of valuable information. It did bring home that we need to make a plan with the kids…we did a drill after the neighbor’s fire in AK but that won’t help us much down here. {sigh}
Mike was ticked that they build up a huge case of guilt in the men ….you love your family, you want the best for them, how much would you say their lives are worth???? and then they obviously have a giant mark up on their products…..I see his point.
They say the smoke alarms you buy around town are less than 50% functional. This IS the base for the fire school. Mike plans to talk with the Fire Chief and Deputy Fire chief and/or I’ll talk with my friend and her dh and we’ll find out what they recommend and what they have in their homes. We think we can buy commercial grade detectors and put them in all the bedrooms, living room, garage and attic for less than $5,000.00.
Meanwhile we DID learn some great things and we’ll take those steps now…off to the store tomorrow.
2 comments:
Right off it makes me think 50% of what? It only takes 50% of the fire, smoke, CO in the air to set off the $5k unit as the $10 unit? Or the $10 unit only works 50% of the time? Or it will take 50% longer to set off the cheaper?
Oh, DeEtta, you KNOW what I'm thinking about people & their expensive products that you HAVE to have (problems in this world are due to the curse, and no product is going to rescue you from the curse).
This also reminds me of a friend of Sister Rachael's who had a salesperson who was dead set on selling her a $1000 vacuum (probably the cheap ones only worked 50% as well). Anyway, he pulled the "aren't your children worth it?" thing on her & she very calmly said "children all over the world & all throughout time have lived on dirt floors, I think we will be fine."
There's a balance.
Talked with a friend's dh who is an instructor at the Fire school on base. He said that those detectors are fine. That if they didn't work 50% of the time they'd be recalled.
He also said I should have asked the man what "HIS life was worth" when he asked in front of the kids what their lives were worth to us....
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