Welcome to Week 1 of Building Safety Month 2023!

As part of our "Building Safety is Personal" theme, this week we're highlighting "Building Safety Starts at Home" & how building safety impacts our everyday life as family members, friends, & individuals at home.

Discover fire safety tips, home maintenance best practices, enhancing the sustainability of your home, & ensuring a cleaner & greener tomorrow in the menu on the previous page.

Modern homes & buildings incorporate the latest building codes & are designed to minimize the possibility and effects of fire and other risks. While building safety professionals help maintain this system, there are things we can do at home to stay safe & help reduce the risk of fire.

If a fire does break out, it's also critical to know how to make a safe exit – it takes less than 30 seconds for a small flame to burn completely out of control and turn into a major fire.

Here we've listed a few fire safety tips below. Be sure to download & review the ICC's complete guides found here.

• Put a smoke alarm on every level of your home, outside each sleeping area, & inside every bedroom.
• Test each smoke alarm regularly. Keep batteries fresh by replacing them annually.
• Make an escape plan so everyone knows how to get out fast. Pick a meeting place outside the home where everyone will meet.
• Portable heaters need their space. Keep anything that can burn at least three feet away.
• Keep all items that can burn away from your home, clean leaves from your gutters, & clear dead leaves and branches from shrubs & trees.

Building Safety at Home

Regardless if you own your home or you're renting, keeping your home maintained is important to ensure you're living in a safe environment.

Home maintenance encompasses a wide range of preventative tasks that all contribute to occupant health, occupant safety & security, & overall sustainability (more on this in the next section). From mold prevention to electricity safety tips from a code inspector, here are some of the highlights pulled from the resources below.

• Never overload electrical cords or power strips. Be sure the total amount of energy used by appliances and lights plugged into the cord or strip does not exceed that capacity.
• Don’t use appliances that have damaged cords.
• For mold prevention, watch for leaky pipes, condensation & wet spots, and fix sources of moisture problems as soon as possible.
• There are several materials and items that shouldn't be flushed down the toilet, including medication, disposable wipes, coffee grounds, & more.
• To prevent your pipes from freezing this winter, drain water from swimming pool & water sprinkler supply lines following manufacturer’s or installer’s directions.

The International Code Council is helping our communities forge a path forward on energy & sustainability to confront the impacts of a changing climate, & these guiding tenants can be used at home, too!

With fresh water supplies at risk & an ever-increasing load on the power grid threatening communities around the world, every proactive step we take at home makes a big difference in decreasing our footprint and burden on the system.

Keep these tips (more below) in mind the next time you set your thermostat, plan a home renovation, & more.

• Install water-saving shower heads and low-flow faucet aerators, & use your water meter to check for hidden water leaks.
• Never dump anything down storm drains.
• Change the filters in the heating & cooling system of your home regularly.
• Replace your light bulbs with LEDs, which use up to 90 percent less energy and last up to 25 times longer than traditional incandescent bulbs.
• Design your home with materials that are easily recyclable, reusable, renewable, durable, affordable, & low maintenance.
• Build a rain garden to capture roof drainage & divert it to your garden or landscaping. Be sure to check your local rules on rainwater harvesting prior to installation.

Learn more from the International Code Council here.

While you’re probably very familiar with what your local police & fire departments do, you may be less familiar with building safety professionals. In that way, building safety professionals are the silent defenders of public safety.

Here are a few things you should know:

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), one of the most cost-effective ways to safeguard our citizens & our communities against disasters is to adopt &follow hazard-resistant building codes.

When adopted & enforced, building codes can save lives, save billions of dollars & protect property for generations to come. Here are a few facts to consider:

• Since 1980, the average number of billion-dollar disasters has been six per year, but from 2016 to 2018, the number jumped to 15 per year.
• A staggering 65 percent of counties, cities & towns across the U.S. have not adopted modern building codes.
• Only 27 percent of hazard-prone jurisdictions in the U.S. adopted the latest two editions of hazard-resistant building codes.
• The I-Codes could help communities avoid $132 billion to $171 billion in cumulative losses through 2040.
• If all new buildings across the U.S. were built to modern editions of the I-Codes, the country would save more than $600 billion by 2060.

Learn more from the International Code Council here.

We all have a role in making sure the places where we live, work & play are safe. From reaching out to your local media, to advocating for building safety to local leadership, even the smallest action can make a difference. Here we've included education and advocacy tips, as well as templates that are easily editable & shareable.

Clean water is the world’s most precious commodity, & public health depends on safe & readily available water. The World Health Organization estimates over 2 billion people live in water-stressed countries, which is expected to worsen in some regions due to a changing climate & population growth.

Water conservation and efficiency issues have become crucial conversations amongst building safety professionals in recent years. The building industry looks to increase water efficiency through innovative practices & technologies not just domestically, but worldwide. Here are some examples of countries in water-scarce areas that are innovating: