“I’ve been a firefighter for five and a half years and have seen time and time again the difference between a closed door versus an open door in a fire,” Sellinger told MyEverettNews.com. “I began thinking with so much home automation there must be a way to close an open door in connection with a smoke alarm.”
Sellinger got together with a hometown friend and began working on ideas and prototypes and the two came up with LifeDoor.
According to Underwriters Laboratories Firefighter Safety Research Institute people once had an average of 17 minutes to escape a burning home after the activation of a smoke alarm. Today, that time has dropped to three minutes or less due to materials used in furnishings, homes incorporating more open layouts and lightweight construction materials, all contributing to fires spreading much quicker.
UL FSRI research reveals closed doors dramatically decrease heat and CO levels versus open doors, providing trapped occupants more time to react and escape if they can do so safely. UL has developed a public relations campaign to get people to shut their door when they go to bed. “Close before you Doze” is the campaign that features a website and related material to encourage people to close their doors when they go to bed.“Open door versus closed door could mean life or death,” said Steve Kerber, UL Director of Firefighter Safety Research. “It’s important that when everyone goes to sleep at night that they sleep with their doors closed. Lives will be saved if more people hear the message to close your door.”
“When I’m away from home on shift my wife likes to sleep with the bedroom door open so she can hear our daughter come home,” said Sellinger.”People have pets that come and go, there are all kinds of reasons people leave their bedroom door open and LifeDoor is being developed with those people in mind.”
Right now LifeDoor is still in development stage. Sellinger says they hope to bring it to market next year online and a retail. As with any startup, financing has been an issue and he may do a kickstarter campaign to raise funds.
You can visit their website to see more about LifeDoor and get pre-order, product and investment information. They also have a short video that demonstrates how to install LifeDoor.
October 1, 2017
Everett