Tag: safety

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Cottage Life

8 pieces of safety gear DIYers need to have at the cottage

Photo by rawf8/Shutterstock

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DIYers love collecting tools but they often overlook protective gear. Here are eight essential pieces of safety equipment for the DIYer in your life.

hearing protection Photo courtesy of Worktunes/Amazon

Hearing protection

Power tools such as chainsaws and impact drivers are loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage. Foam plugs that fit into your ears are better than nothing, but why not upgrade to a Bluetooth-equipped headset that protects your ears and allows you to listen to music while you work.

Buy from Amazon
$65.69

safety goggles Photo courtesy of Lowes

Safety glasses

DIYers of a certain vintage might recall these construction safety videos from the 1980s, including one that featured a shard of metal flying into a man’s eye. Watch it once and you’ll never forget to wear your safety glasses.

Buy from Lowe’s
$8.99

safety gloves Photo courtesy of Lowes

Work gloves

A good pair of work gloves protect your hands from splinters, knuckle-blows from errant hammer swings, cold weather, and more. But do not wear gloves when using stationary tools with spinning parts, like a drill press or table saw where the material can get caught in the machinery.

Buy from Lowe’s
$20.99

Hard hat Photo courtesy of Rona

Hard hat

A DIYer’s greatest tool is their brain. This is why, like a pro, you should protect it with a hard hat if you’re doing demolition work, trimming tree branches, or other tasks where objects could fall from above.

Buy from Rona
$43.99

Knee pads Photo courtesy of Rona

Knee pads

Give your hardest-working joints a break by wearing protective knee pads when you’ll be working crouched over (installing deck boards, gardening, etc.). Alternatively, buy a foam pad you can rest on.

Buy from Rona
$38.99

Respirator mask Photo courtesy of Amazon

Respirator

Now that we’ve all gotten used to wearing masks in our daily lives, it should be a no-brainer to wear a respirator when doing DIY projects that generate dust or involve the use of chemicals or other products that off-gas fumes.

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$31.86
$28.75

Work boots Photo courtesy of Mark’s Work Warehouse
safety

Work boots

If you’ve ever stepped on a nail doing a DIY project, you’ll never make that mistake again. Look for CSA-approved work boots that have both a steel toe cap to protect your lower digits, and a sole plate to prevent injuries from stepping on those exposed nails.

Buy from Mark’s
$89.99

Safety pants Photo courtesy of Amazon

Chainsaw pants

Whether you’re felling dead trees or harvesting your own firewood, if you use a chainsaw at the cottage, you should invest in chainsaw pants.

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$131.94

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Categories
Pets Files

Is your pet door burglar-proof?

A pet door – also referred to as a cat flap or doggie door – is a small opening in a wall, window or human door that allows pets to enter and exit the home on their own. They’re a popular convenience for owners who don’t feel like getting up every fifteen minutes to let animals in and out. Unfortunately, these unsecured openings can also prove an enticing target to criminals, who can climb through them, reach up and unlock the door, or simply use the opening as a weak point to create a larger hole.

Pet door burglaries
Burglary by pet door isn’t terribly common, but it isn’t unheard of either. In fact, earlier this year, the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Los Angeles saw a rash of pet door burglaries. In this particular instance, the criminals were using the dog doors as a starting point and then cutting a larger opening around them, which local police said was a new tactic.

More commonly, criminals either climb through the doggie door if it’s large enough, or reach up through the flap to unlock the door. Less precise criminals may also simply kick in the doggie door to create a big enough opening. This was the case earlier this year in Carlsbad, California, where a teenage girl who was home alone preferred to ignore a man and a woman knocking at her door. Moments later, when she heard them kicking in the pet door at the back of the house, she escaped out her second-storey bedroom window and leaped from the first-storey garage roof. Thanks to her quick thinking, the teen was able to escape unharmed and police captured the suspects with stolen goods in hand.

Pet door safety tips
Obviously, the best way to prevent criminals from entering through your pet door is to simply not have one, but that’s not a workable solution for everyone. If you do decide to install a pet door, there are several ways to limit the risk of unauthorized entry. First, get the smallest size of door that your pet can reasonably fit through. If you have a pet door that’s too big, you can cheaply downsize it by using a bar to block off part of it. Once it’s as small as it can go, check if you can reach your door lock by extending an arm through the flap; if so, install another deadbolt higher up on the door.

If you’re willing to spend a little more, there are more secure doggie door options on the market. Rather than the traditional flap-covered opening, PetSafe, for example, has a line of Electronic SmartDoors, which are only unlocked by a radio-frequency fob worn on your pet’s collar. SureFlap, meanwhile, uses your cat’s existing microchip to signal the door to unlock. These have the added advantage of keeping out strays and even raccoons.

If Fluffy or Rover is not the guard dog or cat you had hoped for, take a few moments to ensure your pet door is secure. As is so often the case, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and time spent securing your pet door against unwanted visitors certainly pays off down the line, in terms of both home security and peace of mind.

Categories
Pets Files

How to pet proof your home

If you’re thinking about bringing home a new furry bundle of joy, it’s well worth taking the time to give your home a good going over to ensure everything is safe for your new pet – and minimize the potential damage a curious kitten or playful puppy can do.

Get down to business
You don’t have to spend a mint on expensive pet products just to make your home friendly for a new addition to the family. Sometimes simply reorganizing and changing a few habits can make all the difference. You may feel a little silly doing this, but the best first step is to get down to your pet’s level – crawling on hands and knees, that is – and take a good look around your home from that perspective. Anything that looks or smells interesting is going to arouse an animal’s curiosity, which means dangerous and delicate items should be moved higher up, well out of reach.

The American Humane Society offers some excellent tips: ensure medications and cleaning products are placed on a high shelf, purchase a latching garbage can or place the garbage container inside a cabinet, block off small spaces, store knickknacks and small toys that could be broken or ingested, move houseplants out of reach, and make sure all vents are securely covered.

There are also habits you’ll want to get into, such as: check the dryer before turning it on to make sure a curious kitten hasn’t climbed inside, keep the toilet lid down to prevent drowning or the ingestion of cleaning chemicals, keep wires – especially electrical ones – tucked away, and make sure clothes and shoes are stowed inside the closet since buttons and drawstrings can be dangerous if swallowed.

Break out the power tools
If you have a particularly determined pet, you may need to break open the toolbox to install a few basic safety features. Toddler latches can be used to keep cabinets and drawers closed, especially if your pet has learned how to pry them open. Baby gates are useful for cordoning off any puppy-free areas in your home. You can also, as the New York Times suggests, invest in new flooring if housebreaking is destroying your rugs. Hardwood or grouted tiles make for an easy clean up, but if you prefer or require carpeting, try carpet tiles; that way, if the rug gets soiled, you can remove and replace just the damaged tile.

If you get a cat or kitten, you’ll want to provide a sturdy scratching post. But sometimes a post alone isn’t enough to keep felines from clawing up the furniture, so you may need to purchase some repellent spray, although special double-sided tape applied to problem areas can also keep the claws at bay.

Being a new pet owner is a big responsibility, and it’s never going to be possible to make the world 100-percent safe for your furry new friend, but with a bit of time and elbow grease, you can ensure your house is pet-proofed, and save yourself the stress of ruined belongings, while keeping your furkid happy and healthy.

Crédit photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net