Cold Weather: Are you Ready?
By: Julie Musgrave
Updated: October 29, 2009
You better start getting used to the cold, and go ahead and make sure your home is safe against the winter hazards that come with it. That means checking your furnaces, your space heaters, before you start using them full time. Fire officials say this is the time of the year when fires pick up, and they say not keeping things in good shape is to blame.
You need to make sure your furnaces are cleaned and checked by a professional, and space heaters should have good space between objects -- that's at least 3 feet.
Now, we're not yet to the point where those heating devices are in use full time, but Marlin Hamilton with the Lubbock Fire Marshal's Office says it's not being prepared that gets folks into trouble.
Marlin Hamilton: "Lubbock is in a spot, where sometimes, our temperatures are so mild, that our heating, our comfort heating appliances are, uh, we just don't keep them in tip top shape. In other words, if we were farther north, we'd have to because we're going to be exposed to extremely cold weather. The farther south we go, we may not have that colder weather at all. So we may not have the necessary need for it."
Aside from your home safety, also make sure your pets are safe. If you can't bring them inside, put them in a garage or a dog house. If they're left out when it's really cold, it is considered animal cruelty.
