What we'd buy
Every product below is something we would put in our own home. We have no financial relationship with any manufacturer or retailer, and we earn nothing if you buy any of it.
This page is organized by finding, so you can go straight to whatever your report flagged.
Links coming soon. We're in the process of selecting specific models. For now, the descriptions below tell you what to look for.
If we flagged your smoke alarms
Alarms expire ten years after manufacture, whether or not they've ever been used. Most homes we walk into have at least one that's past date.
Ten-year sealed lithium smoke alarm
The battery is sealed in and lasts the life of the unit. No annual battery change, no 3am chirp, and you replace the whole alarm at year ten. Look for photoelectric sensing, which responds faster to the smoldering fires that start in furniture and bedding. Buy the same model for every location so they're interchangeable.
Links coming soon
Combination smoke and carbon monoxide alarm
Solves two findings with one device, and worth it in any hallway outside a bedroom. Note that CO sensors have a shorter service life than smoke sensors — typically seven to ten years — so check the date on the combination unit, not just the smoke rating.
Links coming soon
Interconnected alarms
If your report noted that your alarms don't talk to each other, wireless interconnected models retrofit that without rewiring. One sounds, they all sound. This matters most in larger homes and anywhere there's a basement or a bedroom over a garage.
Links coming soon
If we flagged carbon monoxide coverage
Standalone CO detector with digital display
The display is the point. A number tells you whether you're looking at a slow leak or a sudden spike, which is the difference between calling a technician on Monday and leaving the house now. Place at least one on every sleeping level.
Links coming soon
If we flagged your fire extinguishers
ABC dry chemical extinguisher, 2.5 lb
The general-purpose unit for the garage, workshop, and near exits. ABC covers ordinary combustibles, flammable liquids, and electrical. Check the gauge needle sits in the green, and note that extinguishers have service lives even when they've never been discharged.
Links coming soon
If we flagged your kitchen fire response
This is the section where the conventional advice is wrong, so it's worth reading even if we didn't flag anything.
A lid that fits the pan you fry in — free
For a contained pan fire, the correct response is to smother it: slide the lid on, turn off the heat, and leave the pan where it is. Not water, which flashes to steam and throws burning oil across the room. Not a dry chemical extinguisher at close range, which can scatter the oil the same way. The single most effective thing you can do is keep a lid on the counter beside you while you cook, instead of in a drawer across the kitchen.
Links coming soon
Fire blanket
The purchased version of the same idea, and easier to deploy under stress than finding the right lid. Mount it within arm's reach of the cooktop — but not directly behind or above it, where you'd have to reach through the fire to get it. Inexpensive, and the item on this page most likely to actually get used.
Links coming soon
A note on “kitchen extinguishers”: the agent rated for cooking oil is Class K wet chemical, which is a commercial kitchen product and rarely practical at home. Color is not a reliable guide to what's inside a cylinder. Keep an ABC unit in the kitchen for everything that isn't a pan fire, and handle pan fires with a lid or a blanket.
If we flagged your fireplace or ash handling
Metal ash can with a lid
Coals stay live in ash for days. This is the single most common serious finding in homes with a working fireplace, and a metal can with a tight lid, kept away from the structure, closes it permanently. Not a plastic bin. Not a paper bag. Not the garage.
Links coming soon
Fireplace tool set with tongs
Tongs let you reposition a burning log without opening the screen wider than you need to or reaching in with a glove. If your set is missing tongs, that's what we flagged.
Links coming soon
Fire-resistant gloves
Rated for sustained contact heat, not oven-mitt heat. Useful for wood stoves, grills and fire pits as well.
Links coming soon
If we flagged lithium battery charging
Charging station or fire-resistant charging bag
E-bikes, scooters and large tool packs are one of the fastest-growing home fire categories in the country, and it's almost always a charging-location problem rather than a defective-battery problem. Charge on a hard non-combustible surface, away from exits, never overnight, never in a hallway you'd need to escape through.
Links coming soon
If we flagged rags, solvents or shop storage
UL-listed oily waste can
Rags with oil, stain or solvent on them can ignite with no spark and no heat source, purely from the chemistry of drying. A self-closing metal waste can solves it permanently for the cost of a nice dinner. If you finish furniture, refinish floors, or stain a deck, this isn't optional.
Links coming soon
Flammable liquids cabinet or sealed metal storage
For gasoline, propane cylinders, paint thinner and solvents. What matters most is distance from any ignition source, particularly a gas water heater's pilot.
Links coming soon
If we flagged extension cords or electrical load
Heavy-gauge extension cords
Lower gauge number means thicker wire and more capacity. Most household cords are undersized for what people plug into them, and an undersized cord under a rug, behind a dresser, or run wall-to-wall is a warming element waiting for the right moment.
Links coming soon
Surge protector with a real joule rating
A power strip is not a surge protector. If your report flagged a daisy chain or an overloaded strip, replace it with a rated unit — and note that surge protectors degrade with each surge they absorb, so a ten-year-old one is likely offering nothing.
Links coming soon
If we flagged escape readiness
Two-story escape ladder
Stored under the window it serves, not in a closet down the hall. Buy one per upstairs bedroom that doesn't have a second way out. Practice deploying it once, with everyone who'd need to use it — that practice is worth more than the ladder.
Links coming soon
Headlamps or flashlights, one per bedroom
A house fire means smoke and no lights. A headlamp keeps both hands free on a ladder or a stairway. Keep one in each nightstand and check the batteries when you change your clocks.
Links coming soon
A note on brands
We're deliberately not naming a single "best" model. The right smoke alarm for a 1,400 square foot rambler isn't the right one for a four-level house with a detached shop. When the links go up, they'll be specific models we'd buy — and we'll say plainly why we chose each one.
Questions about anything here: info@homefireaudit.com