Growth & Grace

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Even better than I was last time, baby, we

Leaha Crawford 0:35
back and we back and we back and we back and we back and we back good morning and welcome to Growth and Grace, I'm your host, Leah Crawford, and we are here on 91.5 jazz and more. Well, today, y'all, I have something special, a long, long time, I mean, he comes on here quite frequently to talk to me, because summertime I didn't realize was also, you know, we have a lot of events, but how much awareness and preparation do we have about fire and just being able to be safe while we're outdoors having fun and grilling and doing all the things that we can do possibly outside in Las Vegas. So joining us today is Dave Rickards. He's a fire safety expert who was passionate about educating our community on preventing fires before they happen, because you don't like every time he comes on here, I'm like, oh, yep, I gotta go home and do that, yep, I gotta go to the, yep, I gotta do this, yep, I have to do that. And David, first I want to thank you for always being available and always willing to come on to talk to our listeners, just about fire safety.

David Ricketts 1:47
Thank you, because

Leaha Crawford 1:48
I normally tell you one around Christmas, because I know people, you know, we light up, but you said, Leah, summertime, I said, oh, I didn't think about that.

David Ricketts 1:54
Yeah, so winter and summer, those are those are the two deadliest times of the year for home fires, and let's think about summer. All of us parents, our kids are out of school, they're at home sometimes by themselves. What are they doing? They're cooking more. AC is running 24/7 Bills go up exactly. So, lot of times you have kids that are unattended, whether if they're elementary, middle school, even high school, things happen. Accidents are always, or fires are always accidents for the most part, unless it's arson, but the summer does face unique challenges, and especially here in Clark County, with the heat that we have compared to other parts of the country.

Leaha Crawford 2:30
So, even with the heat that we have, what are the most common causes of fires during summer months? Like, what are the most common?

David Ricketts 2:37
Great question. So, let's, we talked about the kids being at home more, so the AC is running more, so we have ACs that can start fires, the excess or excessive use, and a lot of times we see that people aren't doing the proper maintenance on AC systems, and even just checking their electrical wiring all throughout the house, like in the attics, they get a lot hotter during the summertime, so

Leaha Crawford 2:57
the stop, stop AC maintenance, you got to maintain it,

David Ricketts 3:02
yeah. Just gonna turn it

Leaha Crawford 3:03
on,

David Ricketts 3:03
yeah. Gotta have it checked out.

Leaha Crawford 3:05
Okay. So, when do you have it? How often should you have it checked out?

David Ricketts 3:08
So, me, me personally, in my home, we have our ACs and our furnaces checked twice a year. A lot of companies, they have different service plans that can come out a couple times a year. I'm not gonna name any specific companies, but all your plumbing should be checked a couple times a year. Every appliance needs maintenance, whether if it's your dryer. You mean, I just.. I

Leaha Crawford 3:29
just can't.. I just can't just let it go. I bought it, put it in, just let it go. Now I gotta maintain it.

David Ricketts 3:33
So, think about it. So, your furnace is off for probably what, six, seven months out of the year, just sitting there idle. Your AC is gonna be off. We're not using it during this winter months. The good

Leaha Crawford 3:42
thing is that we have an HVAC unit here, so you probably tend to use it a lot more because you're using it majority of the year,

David Ricketts 3:49
correct? Because I know

Leaha Crawford 3:50
mine runs all year long, mine runs all the time, because I need the temperature to be this temperature. I don't care if you're one of those, I'm one of those. I don't care if I got to heat it up or cool down, but it's always running, but still, you should have a check twice a year. Absolutely,

David Ricketts 4:04
everything needs maintenance, and so just check with your manufacturer and the beloved owner's manuals that none of us check, or when you have something installed, that

Leaha Crawford 4:12
thing's like something. So, whether if you're

David Ricketts 4:14
getting something from Home Depot or having some company come install something for you, follow the maintenance that's recommended by the manufacturer. We got to spend that money. It's going to prolong the life of that appliance, whether if it's your AC, HVAC system, whatever it is. But some of the other things that we will see and have already seen for the summer are the e-bikes, e-scooters, all those devices that kids have plugged in.

Leaha Crawford 4:39
Okay, so I saw that. So I saw an e-scooter. It looked like a Cadillac. No, I'm for real. No, I did. I was, I was at a store yesterday. Older gentleman had one. It had, like, it had rims on it. It had, I'm serious, you know? He could play music. It had different speeds, so he could go fast, he could go slow.

David Ricketts 4:57
Yeah,

Leaha Crawford 4:58
yeah,

David Ricketts 4:58
yeah. So. Will

Leaha Crawford 5:00
change the scooter game totally,

David Ricketts 5:02
yeah, completely right. So these things obviously need to be charged, right? They all have the dangerous, those lithium ion batteries, which are a challenge overall in itself, but whether we're talking about e scooters, e bikes, whatever, even remote control cars, they all have these lithium ion batteries. So during the summertime, never charge those things outside in the direct sunlight. Okay, that's one. Okay, two, never charge them unattended. So, in other words, don't charge those overnight. Okay. So, with that being said, think about everything else in the house that we have in or around the house that we have that has a lithium ion battery. And I brought the sheet for you too. This is just a list of things that most of us have inside of our house that has those lithium batteries.

Leaha Crawford 5:40
So, I'm going to read this list of y'all, because y'all can't see the sheet, but smartphones, tablets, laptops, the power banks, wireless earbuds, over the car, over the ear headsets, smart watch, I got one of them on fitness trackers, got that, hover boards, yep, electronic scooters, electronic skateboards, robot vacuums, handheld vacuums, electric toothbrushes, cordless razors, and I'm reading all this, so that you can hear hair trimmers, electric razors, hair trimmers, personal massagers, I got that too. Wow, rechargeable flashlights, camping lanterns, baby monitors, RC boats, drones, controllers, remote control, game controllers, power drills. I mean, you name it, every lithium battery. Yeah.

Leaha Crawford 6:33
Oh, wow.

David Ricketts 6:35
And they don't have it on here, but our electric vehicles, that's electric

Leaha Crawford 6:39
vehicles. Okay. So, all right, so let me ask you this. I'm charging my phone,

David Ricketts 6:43
okay?

Leaha Crawford 6:44
Most of us

David Ricketts 6:46
charge it when

Leaha Crawford 6:47
we sleep,

David Ricketts 6:48
when we sleep,

Leaha Crawford 6:49
when we sleep, because I do put it on a hard surface, okay,

David Ricketts 6:53
which is good, which is good. I put it on

Leaha Crawford 6:55
a horse, and I do check it before I charge it to make sure it's cool,

David Ricketts 6:57
okay?

Leaha Crawford 6:59
But I don't take it off before I go to sleep,

David Ricketts 7:01
of course. Most people don't, so think about this. Let's say during the day, let's say you get home today at 4o'clock in the afternoon, and your phone's at 15% If you put on the charger, how long will it take for it to get to 100%

Leaha Crawford 7:11
Probably about an hour.

David Ricketts 7:12
Okay, so an hour before you go to bed, charge

Leaha Crawford 7:15
it. Well, okay, so let me.. so let me.. so let me be clear what I.. and again, it's planning right, because before it only, you only had with charging, you only had the one, you had to buy multiple blocks, the blocks, now the blocks have multiple inserts,

David Ricketts 7:33
correct,

Leaha Crawford 7:33
so you can charge about four to five, I've seen one with as many as four electronics at the same time,

David Ricketts 7:39
correct,

Leaha Crawford 7:39
so okay, right, so now you can, because you can charge, because we have multiple things that we have to charge

David Ricketts 7:43
all throughout the house,

Leaha Crawford 7:44
right? Cell phones, watches,

David Ricketts 7:47
tablets,

Leaha Crawford 7:48
tablets, everything. So you're saying plan, put this in your plan, charge it. But what if you own the phone all the time? You just,

David Ricketts 7:56
I am,

Leaha Crawford 7:56
you on the phone, so watch this.

David Ricketts 7:58
So this is how I'm set up, and I've been doing this consistently for the past seven or eight years. When I wake up in the morning, even if my battery is at, let's say, 10% I'll throw it right on the charger. So I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be, I'll be in the house once I wake up for at least an hour, whether I'm gonna go to the gym. So I'll get at least an hour of charging before I leave. I have another charger in the car, so anytime I'm in the car, it's on the charger. So throughout the day I couldn't tell you the last time that my battery actually died. So I have charges all throughout the house, so I have one in the master bedroom, I have one in my office, I have one downstairs in the kitchen, one downstairs in the living room, and I only plug it up if I'm in that room. So if I'm downstairs in the kitchen juicing, my iPads charging while I'm watching it, and my phone's charging too, because

Leaha Crawford 8:41
you have one of those things where you got to dual charging.

David Ricketts 8:42
No, I don't. I personally, I'm glad you brought that up. I don't use those.

Leaha Crawford 8:45
Why?

David Ricketts 8:46
So I just, we just recorded a new little marketing commercial about things like that. And usually, where do we buy things like that from?

Leaha Crawford 8:53
Best Buy.

David Ricketts 8:54
Oh, you're good. Okay, you should.

Leaha Crawford 8:56
I did.

David Ricketts 8:56
Most people buy from Amazon.

Leaha Crawford 8:57
Oh no, I bought. I got mine from Best Buy. Good.

David Ricketts 8:59
Fantastic. So you did the right thing. Okay, so when you get home, even Best Buy probably ensures this, but look on the back of it, you want to make sure that there's a little sticker on there that says UL or ETL, that means it's been tested,

Leaha Crawford 9:13
UL ETL. So, okay, so I'm sorry, because Amazon, I do, I do that too, but sometimes I want it right then, of course. So I run the, I run the Best Buy like it's like it's a grocery store. No, for I mean, and sometimes, and people say, Leah, that's more expensive. No, I just need to earn the money, I need to grab it. Yeah, and what I've noticed sometimes too is I look at the weight of a product, and this is bad, the weight of a product that's good, and if it doesn't have a good way, I don't want it,

David Ricketts 9:43
that's good, that's good. If we do that, it's we do that exact same test with smoke alarms with the standard basic ones, how cheap they are versus ours, right?

Leaha Crawford 9:52
It's a weight, yeah, and it's like more

David Ricketts 9:54
components on the inside, and even the outside materials may have something completely different, but with Amazon, we. Just did something as well. We bought, I believe, it was four or five different carbon monoxide detectors on Amazon, all the ones that people see on the Facebook ads, right? Right, it's got a little screen on it's got all these lights, it tells you the humidity, right? I think out of the five that we purchased, only four were only one was made in America, that was one, but the other ones, none of them had UL certification, now UL Underwriters Laboratory, that means it's been tested for safety. Okay, you know, for the voltage and for fire, and you said it's on the

Leaha Crawford 10:30
back, and it's just a.. and I remember seeing UL on a lot of.. because if you get them from when you buy your phones, if you get them, those charges have UL on the back of them.

David Ricketts 10:39
So, what kind of phone do you have? Apple, Android, it's

Leaha Crawford 10:42
got all the things.

David Ricketts 10:42
Okay, so if you, if you have an Apple charger, and let's say you have Apple, what's the newest one right now, like 16 or something? I

Leaha Crawford 10:49
don't know.

David Ricketts 10:49
Okay, let's say it's 16, and let's say your child has one that's Apple 15. Even though the charges are quote unquote compatible, you can switch them and they'll still work. Don't do that, because that one for the 15 and the one for the 16, it's going to push a little bit different current in at a different rate from what your phone is designed for. So don't switch chargers with anybody, never use somebody else's charger unless you have the exact same phone and model that they have.

Leaha Crawford 11:15
You know, we did that all the time, all the time, we act, because we, yeah,

David Ricketts 11:20
and my phone, my charger will work. I have an Android, my phone will work, my charger will work with my wife's Apple products. Yes, but it's nine times out of 10, the phone's gonna get hot, the charger is gonna get hot, something's gonna go wrong.

Leaha Crawford 11:32
So, the thing about.. so I haven't had that happen when we're charging, all right? So, I haven't had that happen, because when Apple went to the Universal, because we have a whole bunch of chargers throughout the house, and I know I was like, oh my god, we got it's a charger in every room, and but just being well, first, then we had to label them, so we know whose is whose, because they, they all look black and white, everybody,

David Ricketts 11:54
every company now has USB C chargers,

Leaha Crawford 11:56
yes, because it's B to B, isn't it, B to B now, or

David Ricketts 11:59
C, should be C,

Leaha Crawford 12:01
C to C, it's something weird, both sides are the same. Yeah,

David Ricketts 12:04
correct, right? They're all C's,

Leaha Crawford 12:05
they're all C's. Okay,

David Ricketts 12:07
so even though they all are USB C's, get the one designed for your phone. So I'll go to Verizon if I need to get a new charger or a new block, so be cautious. But

Leaha Crawford 12:17
I go, but when I go to, so when I go, I always look to see that it's for my phone, correct.

Leaha Crawford 12:22
And what I have noticed is they will list out the number of the phone that is compatible, that is combat, and my son and my phone are compatible on the charges. But again, I, okay,

David Ricketts 12:34
don't do that. All right, so you're

Leaha Crawford 12:35
listening to Growth and Grace. This is Leah Crawford. Julian is not here with us today, and we have David Ricketts on here, and y'all, y'all know my mouth is open, you know. Again, just some safety tips, so that you, you, I mean, you can just, you know, it's just do, doing your due care,

David Ricketts 12:52
correct?

Leaha Crawford 12:52
Just making sure that you are taking care of you, especially in this hot season. Everybody's moving fast, we're doing things. He said something to me new today. Don't share chargers unless you have the same phone, because I know a lot of us, you know, you're out and about. Oh, I need a charger, you just go plug your phone up,

David Ricketts 13:09
correct?

Leaha Crawford 13:10
Not a good idea. Be

David Ricketts 13:11
cautious,

Leaha Crawford 13:12
be cautious. Okay,

David Ricketts 13:13
so recently I believe this was maybe within the last two weeks, there was an Amazon delivery truck that was, I believe, it was at Amazon. I don't know if it was reloading or whatever, but it was charged up to the charger, and it started fire. I believe it was North Las Vegas that had to put it out. I just saw the report a couple days ago. So, when it comes to

Leaha Crawford 13:33
stop, stop, stop. So, let me, let me back up, because you said that too fast for me.

David Ricketts 13:37
Okay,

Leaha Crawford 13:39
Amazon's truck was electric vehicle

David Ricketts 13:41
correct,

Leaha Crawford 13:41
and they were charging at a charging station that they thought was compatible. It was at

David Ricketts 13:46
Amazon, that's where they were charging at. Yeah.

Leaha Crawford 13:48
Oh, so

David Ricketts 13:49
it was theirs.

Leaha Crawford 13:50
It was okay. Yeah, yep, compatible. So

David Ricketts 13:53
it's compatible on the whole nine, but things happen, and we've seen chargers, the EV chargers start fires in people's garages,

Leaha Crawford 14:01
I've seen, which

David Ricketts 14:02
is, that's scary, because thing, I want you, there is no smoke alarm in your garage. There is nothing in your garage that would tell you that you have a fire. So, let's say, if you have your car charged. So, stop. Go ahead. Let

Leaha Crawford 14:13
me say this. In newer homes, they put sprinkler systems in the garage,

David Ricketts 14:17
not all of them. There's a lot of them. Some of them, they don't put sprinklers in the garage, they'll put them all throughout the house, but sometimes not in the garage, it depends on the builder.

Leaha Crawford 14:25
Okay,

David Ricketts 14:26
yeah,

Leaha Crawford 14:26
all right,

David Ricketts 14:26
yeah. So, let me say, the

Leaha Crawford 14:27
more expensive homes, they put sprinkler systems.. well, now,

David Ricketts 14:30
now it's fire code, it's required here in Clark County, all new construction, and that's something else we could definitely talk about with the water shortage, but let's go on. No, let's go, yeah,

Leaha Crawford 14:39
because they seriously, but that saved my girl, because I had a very good friend who had a Tesla, and the fire started in her garage, and the builder put the sprinkler system in the garage, and that's what saved her and her family,

David Ricketts 14:55
so they were home when it happened,

Leaha Crawford 14:57
they were home when it happened. Now, How

David Ricketts 14:58
did they find out about the fire? Did the spring. Was also set off an alarm. Yes. Okay. Good. Fantastic. No,

Leaha Crawford 15:03
she just.. I mean, again, she's one of.. no, but it's her personality, okay? So I don't know if she was home or not. Okay, I just know that the sprinkler system went off, okay? And the family was alert, and nothing.. okay, only damage that was done in the garage was in the garage. The house wasn't damaged, which is huge.

David Ricketts 15:22
Yeah, absolutely. Now, now, this is one of the things with sprinklers, whether if we're talking about commercial or residential, sprinklers only work in a hot fire. Most people die in residential fires due to smoke or gasses. Okay, so if you're, let's say, if you have a slow smoldering fire in the house, it could be from something that you threw away, it could be from, you know, the traditional cigarette butt, or whatever, that's going to be a slow smoldering fire. Got it? Your house could be filled with smoke and gas long before it gets to a temperature that would set off sprinklers, so that's okay. The downside was sprinkling downside, but also, I'm unfortunately, I'm seeing a lot of people, when they buy houses that have sprinklers, they're told, "Oh, you don't need to do any maintenance on your sprinkler system,

Leaha Crawford 16:04
but you just said earlier today that you got to do maintenance on everything.

David Ricketts 16:06
No,

Leaha Crawford 16:07
okay,

David Ricketts 16:07
yeah. So add that to the list. Yeah, and I've spoken to these companies, called these companies directly and spoken to them myself, and asked them, "Okay, if I had sprinklers put into my house, which is older house, what kind of maintenance should I have? Should I have done on it? And I've had them tell me you should have us come out once a year and come and check the system, make sure there's no calcium, you know, corroding and built, you know, building up right things like that, make sure the pressure is good and all this. So I've heard some companies say no, there's no maintenance required, and I've heard other companies say no, you do absolutely need to maintenance it. But think about this, for every commercial building, don't they come out and check the sprinklers?

Leaha Crawford 16:42
They do, they check the sprinklers, they check to make sure it's fire extinguishers. Yeah, they do that check every year, right? My

David Ricketts 16:49
daughter works for NextGen, and that's her job. They have to come and check the sprinklers, okay? For all these buildings, so for apartments, they'll come check the sprinklers. I have to, so it's ridiculous to say, for us homeowners, if you have sprinklers, you don't have to have it checked, that's ridiculous.

Leaha Crawford 17:02
So, basically, you need to have a maintenance budget.

David Ricketts 17:04
Yes,

Leaha Crawford 17:04
you need to have a minute. Okay. All right, a real life, like they say,

David Ricketts 17:06
home ownership is expensive. Home owners, yeah.

Leaha Crawford 17:09
Well, and that is when you are really taking care of the house,

David Ricketts 17:12
correct? When

Leaha Crawford 17:13
you're really taking care of the house, correct. And then sprinkler, I guess sprinkler systems too. I guess you're outside sprinkler system, if you have one. It needs to be taken. We

David Ricketts 17:20
were just talking about, you know, having water leaks and whatnot. So, you have to check, and that's something new that we've applied now to our company. Is we spoke about this, Leah, one of the free services that we provide are free fire safety evaluations. Now, we use a thermal imaging camera, and just last month, in two houses that I was doing evaluations, and we found water leaks in the house because we're able to see imaging inside the walls, one house, yeah, one house. We saw a spot where one of the sprinklers was actually leaking. It must have just hopefully schedule just so you can go to LV fires.com and just click fire safety survey. You take that quick, you know, questionnaire survey about fire safety, and we'll contact you to schedule fire safety valuations completely free. And now, as Leah mentioned, you can now get a free fire blanket, not one of these basic red fire blankets that you get on Amazon. These new ones, they are designer fire blankets. You'll see them on the website as to where it looks like a like a picture frame or something that's just decorative that you have on the wall, so you don't have to have this ugly red fire blanket sitting out in the kitchen, which you don't want out, because it doesn't go with your decor. So we have different ones that we have one that looks like a box of olive oil, one looks like a bread basket, we have one that says craft beer, one that says whiskey, when they.. so we have.. I need

Leaha Crawford 18:37
to look at it and see if I can lay under it while I'm in the house, just, you know, for real, just, just to lay it over a couch,

David Ricketts 18:42
yeah,

Leaha Crawford 18:42
as a fire blanket.

David Ricketts 18:44
So, but we also have new designer fire extinguishers as well for that same thing, and we have probably 25 different models of those, everything from one that looks like it's wrapped in what's that magazine, so that way you don't have to

Leaha Crawford 18:56
have it under the under the sink, like I do, you can put it out, yeah, we have one

David Ricketts 19:01
that looks like a Heinz 57 ketchup, we have one that has looks like a bottle of olive oil, we have one that looks like a mayonnaise jar, mustard jar, one that looks like it's wrapped in like Vogue magazine. So y'all

Leaha Crawford 19:13
are making fire sexy,

David Ricketts 19:15
yes, so you can have it out. My wife has one in her office, you would think it just, you wouldn't even know it's an extinguisher until you actually look at the top. You would think it's just a cylinder of something like, oh, that's pretty cool.

Leaha Crawford 19:27
I love it. All right, so you are listening to Growth and Grace, and I am Leah Crawford. Today we have David Ricketts on here talking to us about fire safety, and y'all, he just made fire safety sexy. He just talked about, you know, so now you can have the fire extinguisher on the counter, because it looks like olive oil. You can have the fire, because it looks like a Vogue magazine that's sitting somewhere in the house. So, you can have fire extinguishers throughout the house. Now, how often do you have to check them things and make sure that

David Ricketts 19:52
all fire extinguishers should be checked one to two times a year, and to check it yourself, so if you're not running like a daycare, or if you're not. A foster family or anything like that, take your extinguisher and turn it to the side and shake it for about 20 seconds. Okay, reason you want to do that is because that powder that's in there will settle down to the bottom,

Leaha Crawford 20:10
so you want to make sure it solidify, okay,

David Ricketts 20:12
like a bowl full of sugar.

Leaha Crawford 20:13
Okay,

David Ricketts 20:14
so that's what some of the extinguishers look like.

Leaha Crawford 20:16
Oh, wow, he's showing me the extinguisher, and it looked like a bottle of ketchup with a top one, it doesn't look like a next day, they got.. oh God, okay. So, all right, so LV Fires,

David Ricketts 20:25
LV fires.com LV

Leaha Crawford 20:27
fires.com LV Fires, Las Vegas Fires, LV fires.com LV fires.com It's a wine bottle, you can put that behind the bar, tequila bottle, you got mustard, you got cut, you can go in all areas of the house, behind the bar, and just all the things. Yeah. All right. You are listening to Leah Crawford again. I have David Ricketts on here. We're talking about fire safety. Remember LV fires.com LV fires.com I mean, you can make sure your family is safe, because you want to make sure your family is safe. Travel and vacations, you know, a lot of us go on vacation. What do you recommend as a homeowner that we could do to reduce risk while we're on vacation? Because one thing we want to be over, you won't go to on vacations to relax,

David Ricketts 21:11
correct?

Leaha Crawford 21:11
You don't want to be worried about, you know, because you would hate to get that call on vacation.

David Ricketts 21:15
And if you did, you see in the news it was last month, I believe, where that happened to a family here.

Leaha Crawford 21:20
No, it was..

David Ricketts 21:22
I think they lived maybe in Henderson, I forgot, but beautiful, big, beautiful house, right? Huge house. And I think they were.. it may have been overseas, and got that call, your house burned down. So think.. and I think they lost.. if I recall, I got to go back and look at the report, but I think they lost a couple of their pets, if I remember correctly. Oh, wow.. but it was that.. that the house was a complete loss, from what I recall, but that does happen. So, some of the things that we can all do when we go out of town, when I say out of town, anything more than 48 hours, unplug, unplug, unplug as much as you can. So, in other words, so in my office upstairs, this, that is the only time you'll see me actually turn off my Mac and actually unplug it from the wall,

Leaha Crawford 22:01
okay.

David Ricketts 22:01
So everything except for things that are security measures. Yeah, obviously refrigerator, you know, things like that leaf plugged in. Washer dryer, yeah, washer and dryer. Now washing machine. I turn off the water, I'll turn off the water to the whole house, except for the sprinklers, so I don't come back to a water leak.

Leaha Crawford 22:18
Oh, wow, oh wow, yep. Okay, because we

David Ricketts 22:20
get a lot of that, especially this time of the year. Summer people are going out of town, and they come back, water heater blue. So I have to, so turn that off, everything except for lamps that may be on timers for security purposes, or if you ever, your Alexa set up to your security system somehow, unplug everything that you can, that's not, you know, obviously a freezer, refrigerator, leave all that stuff plugged in, but TV, basically all TVs, we have one TV that two TVs that we leave plugged in, because they're on timers, so they'll turn on at certain times of the day, but other than that, unplug everything, because the more things you have unplugged, the more that you can reduce that risk of it malfunctioning when you're not home?

Leaha Crawford 23:02
Okay,

David Ricketts 23:02
yeah. So, but also, here's another big thing: when you go out of town, if you're staying in a hotel or Airbnb, or even going on a cruise, take a carbon monoxide alarm with you.

Leaha Crawford 23:11
Okay,

David Ricketts 23:12
take one with you.

Leaha Crawford 23:13
So, you, they have little portable ones that you can see. So, the

David Ricketts 23:15
ones that we carry, and that's why we tested it, and it'll be on our website to show you the tests and results. Ours, it has an actual on and off switch, and I've taken this with me for the past six years. When I go out of town, take it in my carry-on bag, and once I get to the hotel, turn it on, put it right on the nightstand. In ours, it'll tie in with your cell phone, so it'll tell me if there's a carbon monoxide, know what the carbon monoxide level is in the hotel room or on the cruise ship, wherever I'm at, I get to look at my cell phone and see, so

Leaha Crawford 23:45
it's just being safe.

David Ricketts 23:46
Yeah, so I added to

Leaha Crawford 23:47
your checklist,

David Ricketts 23:48
yeah. I believe it's only 14 states here in the US are required to have carbon monoxide alarms in hotels and in Airbnbs. So think about that. I may go to, like I said, I'm going back to Philly to go visit Pops in a couple of weeks, if I stay with them, but let's say if I stay in a hotel, I don't know what their code is, but let's say if they don't have a carbon monoxide alarm there and I get carbon monoxide poisoning, you may not even know it, I just may wake up one day, I'm feeling sick, and just go to my dad's house, and next you know I'm feeling better, but long term exposure, spend it repeatedly, especially repeated exposure to carbon monoxide causes so many issues, other than just death, like people think you can have long-term neurological problems. It's, and I've heard how painful it actually is. Okay, I've spoken to a lot of people here locally that have said, well, me and my husband almost died from carbon monoxide, and the thing is, it was so painful when we were trying to recover in the hospital, so it's not just, oh, you just don't wake up and die. No, you may wake up, but you may not be the same for the rest of your life. Let

Leaha Crawford 24:48
me ask you this, though. Do you have these checklists on your website?

David Ricketts 24:51
Not on the website right now. No, we actually, we actually bring them with us, because, and the reason we don't have just a basic checklist, you can go online and find a. Checklist from the NFPA or from UL hours, we do everything specialized to you, to your house, okay? Because every house is different, someone may be in a two story house, someone may be in a one story, someone may live upstairs on an apartment, so we tailor everything towards you, so we can let you know, okay, you're you have a three story house, you need a three story escape ladder, or you need X Y, so we detail everything towards you, because every house is different. Your house is going to be different than mine. So we really make it an intimate visit when we come out and visit with you.

Leaha Crawford 25:33
LV fires.com LV fires.com What's one simple habit? Because I believe you, I mean, sometimes we tell people things and it's so overwhelming, so we don't do anything. What is one simple thing? Because I know you can come back on again, we're gonna start with one simple thing that people, that we can do just to improve, I mean, our safety.

David Ricketts 25:57
So I'm gonna say this for two reasons: one, because Fourth of July is in a couple of days, so we're gonna have a lot of, unfortunately, have a lot of barbecue grill fires, but this just happened to me two days ago. I was juicing in the morning, and I turned on my tea on the stove, had it all low, and I forgot about it. I left the house to go to a meeting for maybe an hour, came back home, my wife turned it off, and that's when I realized I left it on, so anytime you have something on the stove, barbecue barbecue grill, set the timer on your phone as a reminder, always.

Leaha Crawford 26:29
Okay, so let's say that again. So anytime you are cooking, always set an alarm, so that on your phone, not just on the stove, because on your phone, so that, and you can talk to your phone, okay? Google, and then talk, because we ever,

David Ricketts 26:40
we always have our phone with us, right?

Leaha Crawford 26:42
Okay, I said, okay, Google, my phone ready to go, right? But so you're saying, whenever you are cooking or dealing with something around fire, even just set a timer, just get in the habit of setting a timer, so that when a timer, oh, okay, I gotta go back and do this, yeah, I love it, yeah, one simple habit. Well, David, I want to say thank you, as always. Half an hour has phone by it's LV fires.com LV fires.com Are there any closing words that you want to give our audience?

David Ricketts 27:12
Yes, don't be, don't let your ego get in the way and think that, oh, I won't have a fire, I live in a $5 million house, or I don't have kids in the house, I don't have pets, I don't smoke, I don't cook that often. Don't think it won't happen to you or can't happen to you, because no one wakes up, you know, today and says, you know what, I might have a fire today, or I might have a carbon monoxide leak. We are, we are NFPA certified experts in this. This is this is what we do, and I have a passion for it, as I've mentioned before in different episodes that I have a personal passion for it, because I almost lost my life in the house fire at four years old, so I take this very seriously, especially if you have children or anybody in the house that may need help getting out of the house physically because of disabilities or just age.

Leaha Crawford 27:54
All right, so that's LV fires.com LV fires.com All right, until next week, remember, growth happens all the time. Grace is what you give yourself. Until next time, next week. Peace and blessings. Bye.

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