Do you have fire escape ladders in your house?

[EldonAve]

Do you have fire escape ladders in your house?

Just wondering as a house down the street caught fire this week

If you do where did you buy them?

God this thread has made me realise how totally ill prepared we are. We often go to bed without any working phone upstairs and our bedrooms are far too high to jump from without serious injury (plus no smoke alarms).
Thanks for the tip scrooged, will give them a call tomorrow...

You don't need a working phone. A cordless phone won't work as any fire will burn the phone line. A mobile is a good idea though but it needs charging up.

I think you misunderstood scrooged. If she wakes first she is to stay at the window before we get to her, the plan is for DH and I to go to their room and escape from there, she is not to leave her room (her bed is next to the window) so we can find her, DD2 in a cot so we know where she is.

we all take mobiles to bed (me, DH, both older girls), just in case.

phone attached to phone lines will birn thru within minutes of a fire!

The smoke alarms will wake you all at the same time. There's less smoke on the floor so maybe teach her to sit besides her bed?

one thing, if you are calling for help out a window...........

fire, fire is the one word not yet ignored when shouting, where-as 'help me' nearly always is no-a-days!

kerry we moved in last year, previous owner was rubbish and not bothered, meant to re-wire straight away (but couldnt afford to) and was going to put in mains alarms as they cant run out like batteries do.
Admit it is pants though, we need to sort it out asap...

hey, kerrymum..............would allergies to drugs cause white blood cell counts to raise up in samples at all do you know?? mine are, and I am allergic to lots of stuff, but you are more clued up than me with allergies, so wondering if you would know at all???

answer here please

scrooged has been fab, but an allergy 'expert' would be handy too

Her window is only 10 inches or so off the floor so she can roll over in bed and have a face in the window, but I see your point. I did have fire safety out when she was teeny but not since she moved into a bed, so that was all we had planned.
Will call them again.

Have been through small fire and CO poisoning and both things have me in cold sweats.

Panna, please call fire saftey and get smoke alarms.

working phone to me means mobile next to bed, we have no landline upstairs but wouldn't have thought about cables TBH, good point.

I have no intention of testing routes that far just wondered if anyone did when you talk about timing them .

Oh, and we have window keys safety pinned to curtains (out of reach of DD's!) so we don't have to find them or worry about dropping them.

Not for fires but how many have a non cordless phone plug in if there is a power cut or do you rely on mobiles. I kept my traditional phone for just this reason as we are rural and have powercuts.

I'd use my mobile if the phone was cut off.
have to say that I think locking windows at night is a bit of a risk too, cant imagine having the time and the wits to undo window locks in several rooms if there was a bad fire...

It's never occured to me to have a phone upstairs. Will take mobile up in future.
I do have a ladder under the bed (bought it from aldi) but DH reckons you wouldn't have time to faff about with it and we're on the first floor anyway.

jack I like the pinning keys idea. We have ours on a high shelf on the landing. I wouldnt leave the housee without my children anyway so have to go past the key to get them.
Pannacotta I think its risk assessment. I think theres a much much higher chance of my children falling out the window than there is of a fire.

Re: the locking windows, NOT having them locked would be dangerous as DD's could open them and fall out, so I am with bronze, would rather they were locked with keys easily accesible (we have spares in teh rooms loose too but each big window has one on the curtain)

Really Kerry? We only had new windows last year but if they don't lock how do you stop the kids opening them? I know mine would if they could

No. Because it's a bungalow.

There's always one!

How do you get out if your windows on first floor only have smallish top windows? How easy is it to break double glazing?

mary I would chuck something hard and heavy at them.