Whilst many people are concerned for their home Safety and aim to keep intruders out, the sinister side of this is people lock themselves in without a thought of what to do if they need to exit their home in an emergency.

SATS technicians attend many properties where the occupants take several minutes to allow them access due to having to find the keys to unlock the door internally.

Let’s put this into perspective… Its 2am and the Smoke Alarm has woken you. A fire has broken out within the home and you need to escape. The front door is deadlocked, and your keys are at the other end of the house. Between you and those keys is a fire. You cannot exit through the front door as you cannot unlock it…..

It’s a scary thought as to what could happen next.

When a house is filled with smoke, people often won’t behave in a rational manner. Smoke can overcome and kill people in four minutes, and you are three times more likely to be killed by a night-time fire than a day-time one. The most likely reaction of anyone woken from sleep by a Smoke Alarm is to panic and make straight for the nearest exit. People in such circumstances should not be expected to pause to find the front door key that has been hidden in a drawer, or hung up somewhere away from the door, get it into the lock and turn it.

Simply, people do die in fires because they have deadlocked themselves in and removed the key from the lock.