Home Safety Checks, step by step
Nothing here takes more than a few minutes; all of it matters only in advance.
- Weekly — test smoke alarmsPress the button until it sounds. A silent alarm is not a working alarm.
- Monthly — check the RCDPress the test button on the consumer unit. It should trip immediately.
- Every 6 months — clear the dryerLint in a tumble dryer vent is a genuine fire cause.
- Yearly — service gas appliancesBy a registered engineer. Carbon monoxide has no smell.
- Every 10 years — replace alarmsThe sensors degrade. The date is printed on the back.
Where alarms go
- One per floor, on the ceiling, central
- CO alarm in any room with a fuel-burning appliance
- Not in kitchens or bathrooms — use a heat alarm instead
Agree an escape route with everyone in the house, and keep door keys where they can be found in the dark.
Questions about the Home Safety Checks poster
- What’s on the Home Safety Checks poster?
- 5 numbered steps, with a full worked run-through. Nothing here takes more than a few minutes; all of it matters only in advance. Weekly — test smoke alarms — Press the button until it sounds. A silent alarm is not…; Monthly — check the RCD — Press the test button on the consumer unit. It should trip…; Every 6 months — clear the dryer — Lint in a tumble dryer vent is a genuine fire cause.; Yearly — service gas appliances — By a registered engineer. Carbon monoxide has no sm…; Every 10 years — replace alarms — The sensors degrade. The date is printed on the back.. Agree an escape route with everyone in the house, and keep door keys where they can be found in the dark.
- Who is the Home Safety Checks poster for?
- Home Safety Checks belongs to the Practical skills section rather than to a school year, because life skills is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning safety can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Home Safety Checks poster?
- Put these on a recurring reminder. Every one of them fails silently. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Home Safety Checks belongs on the wall where that life skills work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Home Safety Checks?
- Carbon Monoxide, Household Chemicals and Child Safety at Home sit alongside Home Safety Checks in the Practical skills section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Carbon MonoxideHousehold ChemicalsChild Safety at Home
- Is the Home Safety Checks poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Home Safety Checks downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Practical skills section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Home Safety Checks poster print at?
- Home Safety Checks is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Home Safety Checks loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Home Safety Checks on the same wall.
Browse every Practical skills poster, or start from the full catalogue.