Get Your Auto Ready for Winter

November 3, 2015 by

While protecting your home is a priority for New Yorkers, some still need an automobile to get around the city that never sleeps and others own one for weekend adventures.  It’s important to prepare your auto for the harsh conditions it may face when winter arrives. Sentry Window Guards hopes that you’ll consider these tips when driving this winter either at home or on a winter vacation!

Get Your Car Serviced

The quickest way to ruin a trip out to the burbs is to break down when it’s cold and snowy.  Try to avoid a potential breakdown by taking your vehicle to the mechanic and have any routine maintenance or tune-ups performed.  While there, ask the mechanic to look for the following potential problems:

  • Worn hoses, parts, leaks or anything that looks like it needs to be replaced.
  • Have your battery checked to verify that it still has sufficient voltage and test the tightness of the cable connections. It takes more power for your battery to work efficiently in the winter.  For hybrid and electric vehicles, your driving range is reduced in winter but work more efficiently once warmed up.
  • Ask your mechanic to look over your cooling system.

What You Can Do

  • To support the gasoline system in an electric vehicle, always keep it filled with fresh gas.
  • Fill your windshield washer reservoir with a “no-freeze” fluid.
  • Check your windshield wiper blades for wear and tear, replace them if necessary.
  • Check your cars heating system and defrosting system.
  • Take a good look at your tires, check them for wear.  Tires should have at least 1/16 of an inch of tread on them.  Also, check their inflation, when the temperature drops the air pressure in your tires drops. Put snow tires on your vehicle prior to the first storm if you plan to use them
  • Practice winter weather driving off of a main road.  It’s common to forget how to drive in ice and snow between seasons.

Be Prepared

While you can’t think of every possible scenario, follow these guidelines and keep your car stocked in the event you get stranded.

  • Carry a small snow shovel, ice scraper, and whisk broom.
  • Sand or kitty litter in case you get stuck in the snow.
  • Flashlight, flares, jumper cables.
  • Spare blankets, hats, and gloves
  • Food and water if you’re going on a longer trip.
  • Fluorescent tape

If You Become Stranded

  • Don’t panic.
  • Stay with your car, keeping your seatbelt and dome light on.
  • Place strips of your fluorescent tape on your outside antenna.
  • Don’t keep your car running, you risk asphyxia or carbon monoxide poisoning.
  • Periodically, remove the snow from your tailpipe and only run the car sparingly.

These tips should help keep your automobile in top shape and you safe this winter, and when you need to think about safety for your New York home, consider Sentry Window Guards to keep your family safe and secure.

 

Sources

http://www.nsc.org/

http://www.nhtsa.gov/

 

Filed Under: Safety Tips Tagged With:

Creating Your Fire Safety Plan in New York

October 1, 2015 by

Creating a Fire Safety Plan in New York     

As summer winds down and cooler temperatures begin arriving we’ll all begin spending more time indoors, as a result, most home fires occur between the months of November through March.  Now is the time to make a fire plan or review your existing one.  Fire’s don’t just happen to careless people, anyone could be at risk.

Here are some recent statistics:

  • In 2014 public fire departments in the United States responded to 1,298,000 fires.
  • In 2014, 494,000 fires occurred inside of a structure.
  • An alarming 74% or 367,500 fires occurred inside of homes.
  • Every 86 seconds a U.S. fire department responded to a home fire in 2014.
  • Cooking equipment is the leading cause of reported and unreported home fires and injuries.
  • Children under five years old are almost 1-1/2 times more likely to die in a home fire as the average person.
  • Most home fires that cause child deaths occur during the months of December – February.
  • In 2014, there were 26,531 structural fires in the five boroughs of New York City with an FDNY average response time of 4 minutes and 9 seconds.

What to Do

Leaving you as little as one or two minutes to escape once your smoke alarm sounds, fire can spread rapidly through your home.  This is a great opportunity to get the entire family involved in creating an escape plan.  You should try to create two means of escape from each room, utilizing windows and doors.  Sometimes a drawn floor plan with escape routes and smoke alarms noted is easier for children to understand.

NAFTA provides a very child-friendly, interactive grid which gets children involved in a safe, fun way.

http://www.nfpa.org/safety-information/for-consumers/escape-planning/basic-fire-escape-planning

NAFTA recommends that smoke alarms be installed in every room where anyone sleeps, outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home.

It is imperative that every person in the household understands the escape plan. During your fire drill, make sure the escape routes are clear and doors and windows can be opened easily.

Fire safety in a high rise or apartment building has its own challenges because of many differences such as time/distance to get out of the building, smoke movement, and fire department access.

Best practices for planning an escape from an apartment building can be found here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/pdf/safety/fire_safety_education/2010_02/07_residential_apartment_fire_safety_english.pdf

  • Choose an outside meeting place (neighbor’s house, a light post, mailbox, or stop sign) a safe distance from your home or apartment building where everyone can meet after they’ve escaped. Make sure to indicate your meeting place on your family’s escape plan.
  • Make sure your street number is clearly visible from the road so that responding emergency personnel can find your home.
  • Make sure everyone is familiar with contacting 9-11 or the Fire Department directly.
  • If there are infants, older adults, or family members with mobility limitations, make sure that someone is assigned to assist them in the fire drill and in the event of an emergency. You’ll need a backup person in case the person assigned to assist isn’t home during the emergency.
  • If windows or doors in your home have security bars, make sure that the bars have an emergency release so that they can be opened immediately if necessary.
  • You should consider telling guests or visitors to your home about your family’s fire escape plan. When staying overnight at other people’s homes, ask about their escape plan. This is especially important if your child attends a sleepover.
  • If your smoke alarm sounds, be fully prepared to get out.
  • Once you’ve escaped the fire, stay out!  Do not go back into a burning building. Let the fire department know if someone is missing.

 

Testing your Plan

  • You should have a home fire drill at least twice per year.  Once children have mastered your escape plan, consider having one at night when they are sleeping. You don’t want to frighten them, so tell them before they go to bed that you’re having a fire drill. Having a fire drill at night will also let you know if anyone in the house sleeps through the smoke alarm, if so, assign them a buddy who will wake them up.
  • If your home has two floors, make sure everyone can get out of a window easily from the second floor.
  • Teach your family to stay low to the ground to avoid any toxic smoke.
  • Close doors as you escape, which slows the spread of the fire and may give you more time to escape safely.
  • Teach family members, especially children what to do in the event that they cannot escape.  Show them how to stuff towels or clothes under doors to prevent smoke from entering the room they are in.
  • Don’t forget to teach everyone about testing the door for heat before you open it.
  • Make sure everyone understands “stop, drop and roll”.

 

Fire Prevention Week

NFPA has been the official sponsor of Fire Prevention Week since 1922. According to the National Archives, Fire Prevention Week is the longest running public health and safety observance on record. This year’s fire prevention week will be October 4 – 10th and the theme is “Hear the Beep Where You Sleep.” For more information on Fire Prevention Week click here: http://www.nfpa.org/safety-information/fire-prevention-week

The FDNY has a very interactive fire prevention department, for more information click on the link: http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/safety/index.shtml

 

At Sentry Window Guards, your family’s safety is very important to us! If you have questions about fire safety and your current window guards, give us a call!

________

Sources

http://www.usfa.fema.gov/data/statistics/

http://www.esfi.org/

http://www.nfpa.org/

http://www.nyc.gov/

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Child Safety, Safety Tips Tagged With: ,

Is your New York apartment safe?

August 14, 2015 by

By far, the most common threat to an apartment unit is burglary. Having your home entered and pilfered through by a stranger can leave a family feeling vulnerable and violated. In 2014, there were 16,765 burglaries in New York City, don’t become a statistic, it is important to understand who commits burglaries and why. The majority of apartment burglaries occur during the daytime when most people are away at work or at school. Burglaries also occur at night when there are seemingly obvious signs that no one is home. Most apartment burglars are young males looking for things that are small, expensive, and can easily be converted to cash. Items like cash, jewelry, guns, watches, laptop computers, and other small electronic devices are high on the list. Quick cash is needed for living expenses and drugs.

Statistics tell us that more than 30% of all apartment burglars gained access through an open door or window. Ordinary household tools like screwdrivers, channel-lock pliers, small pry bars, and small hammers are most often used by burglars. And while it may seem that apartment burglary is random, there is a selection process.

The burglar simply chooses an unoccupied apartment with the easiest access, the greatest amount of cover, and with the best escape routes. What follows is a list of suggestions to minimize your risk by making your home unattractive to potential burglars.

Because of their easy access, and in some cases their hidden nature, these are probably the least safe places to live in a building:

  • A first-floor apartment that can be accessed from the lobby
  • An apartment with a window within 18-feet of the ground
  • An apartment with a fire escape
  • An apartment below ground level
  • An apartment facing the back of the building (because it’s out of plain sight)

THE MOST COMMON MISTAKE: As surprising as it may seem, most burglars get into an apartment through an unlocked front door or an unlocked window, they don’t pick locks. It’s tempting to leave windows open when it’s warm but if you are on the first floor, or you have a fire escape at your window and don’t have window guards, don’t do it. Burglars don’t break windows, it makes too much noise, and they look for an open or unlocked window.

Consider installing a window guard to help keep the thieves out. Installing a window guard will slow a thief down and may even get them to think twice about breaking in.

If you have a fire escape, be sure to have an approved gate on it, you may need to use this point of egress in the event of a fire.

Keep careful control of your apartment keys. Avoid giving your keys to too many people, the dog walker, the plant waterer, etc. Don’t leave your keys on the table when someone comes in to do work in the apartment.

If you’re going to be away for a long time, you might want to consider the equivalent of a “nanny cam” that lets you see what’s going on in all rooms of your apartment via your computer wherever you are in the world.

The NYPD is here to help:

Although it is not widely publicized, the NYPD offers a free crime prevention service to all NYC apartment dwellers, owners or renters.  A trained Crime Prevention officer from your local precinct will come to your home, conduct a security survey and make recommendations for any improvements that he/she thinks are necessary.

All you have to do is to call your Precinct’s Crime Prevention Office and schedule a date. If you don’t know what precinct you live in, the NYPD website includes a Precinct Finder feature.

Go here for more information: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/precinct_maps/precinct_finder.shtml

Once you know your precinct, you may want to look at crime statistics for your neighborhood.

Go here for more information: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/crime_prevention/crime_statistics.shtml

Or here: http://maps.nyc.gov/crime/

You may wish to register your portable electronic valuables; computers, printers, iPads,etc.with the NYPD’s Operation Identification project.  The precinct will send an officer out who will assist you marking your valuables with invisible ink or help you with an engraving tool so that you can etch a serial number onto your valuables. That number will be registered with the NYPD, making the property traceable. You will be given decals for your window that say that your property is registered, a deterrent to any would-be burglars.

Go here for more information – http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/crime_prevention/operation_id.shtml

To Insure or Not to Insure

Renters or owners insurance is a good way to avoid a problem later on. Often clothing, furniture, artwork and electronic devices are covered in a basic policy but jewelry, furs, and silverware are separate categories requiring additional coverage. If you have a home office with expensive equipment, that too, may require a separate policy. In the event your apartment is burglarized, insurance will help cover the costs to replace your stolen property.

To decide how much insurance you need, take an inventory of what you have. Don’t underestimate the value of your clothing or shoes, many people make this mistake.

Keep a record of all significant purchases so that if there is a loss you can document it, speeding up the reimbursement process. Also, take photos of what you have, and save credit card statements when you buy something new.

When purchasing a policy determine whether you want to have one that pays the actual cash value of replacing what you had or the depreciated value. The former will be about 20 percent more expensive.

A basic policy with $15,000 to $20,000 of coverage will cost from $100-$150 per year. To find the best agent for you, getting a reference from a friend is a good idea, someone who has had a claim handled satisfactorily.

Sources

Filed Under: Safety Tips Tagged With: ,
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