Check your fire extinguishers
Annual · typically January
Why it matters
An extinguisher is the one tool in your house where "it's probably fine" isn't a plan — you find out whether it works at the exact moment it's too late to fix. They fail quietly: pressure bleeds off over years, powder compacts into a brick at the bottom, and the gauge nobody looks at drifts into the red.
January is the right month: the holiday cooking marathon just ended, the heating season is at full tilt, and you're indoors anyway.
What skipping it costs
$5,000–$500,000
A stovetop grease flare handled in the first 20 seconds is a scrubbed pan and a story. The same flare 90 seconds later is a cabinet fire, and five minutes later it's the kitchen. The gap between those outcomes is usually one working extinguisher within reach — and the ones that fail do it silently, sitting in a closet losing pressure for a decade.
Two ways to get it done
Do it yourself
You'll need: A new ABC-rated extinguisher (~$40–$70) if yours fails the checks or doesn't exist yet.
- Count and place. Minimum: one in or near the kitchen (mounted, not buried under the sink cleaning supplies), one in the garage or shop. Grab-it-in-3-seconds visible beats hidden.
- Gauge check: needle in the green. Red zone either side — replace it.
- Physical check: pin and tamper seal intact, hose not cracked, no corrosion on the cylinder bottom (that's where they rust out).
- Shake powder extinguishers upside down a few times — you should feel the powder shift, not thud like a solid brick.
- Check the date. Stamped on the cylinder or tag. Disposable residential extinguishers are done at 10–12 years regardless of the gauge. Expired ones go to household hazardous waste, not the trash.
- Rehearse PASS once in your head: Pull, Aim at the base, Squeeze, Sweep. And the exit rule: if the fire is bigger than a wastebasket or you have to think about it, you're not the fire department — leave and call them.
Hire it out
$50–$150National fair range — local labor moves this number.
There's genuinely nothing to hire here — that's the point of this card. Extinguisher service companies ($50–$150 for an inspection visit) exist for commercial fire code, where tagged annual inspections are law. At home, the "service" is: look at the gauge yourself, and replace the unit when it fails or ages out. Spend the service-call money on a second extinguisher instead.
Ask the tech
- Honestly, there's nothing to ask — residential extinguishers aren't serviced, they're replaced.
Red flags you're being upsold
- Extinguisher 'inspection and recharge service' contracts pitched to homeowners. That's a commercial-code business (restaurants, offices) — for a house, recharging a $50 extinguisher costs more than a new one.
- Fancy 'designer' extinguishers with no visible UL rating — if it doesn't say ABC (or at least BC for the kitchen), it's decor.
The call
DIY, fifteen minutes, no exceptions — and if the answer to 'where's the extinguisher?' involved thinking, buy two today.