In between trips to the gym and your office, you might try to carve out time for home organization, crafting, and quality time with your children. To make better use of your time and space, you might find yourself unintentionally compromising your safety from time to time. After all, how dangerous could it really be to use hot glue to repair that living room chair? Unfortunately, your creativity could get you in trouble when it comes to working around large appliances like your home heater. Here are two furnace safety tips for the busy mom:

1: Craft Elsewhere

After tidying up breakfast and folding all of that laundry, the last thing you probably feel like doing is making a big craft mess all over your kitchen table. In addition to creating an instant disaster, you might also worry about your tiny tots ruining your projects after they wake up from their afternoon naps. To cut, glue, sew, and paint to your heart's delight, you might decide to set up shop in your utility closet or basement near the open flame of your home furnace.

Unfortunately, crafting near your heater can be dangerous. Here are a few reasons you should craft elsewhere:

• Painting: To keep spray paint flowing through the nozzle, most aerosols contain flammable propellants, such as propane or butane. Unfortunately, since your home furnace contains a perpetually running pilot light, filling the air with spray paint residue could result in an explosion.  
• Sewing: When you are focused on reinforcing a buttonhole or shortening a seam, it might be difficult to pay attention to where your scraps end up. Unfortunately, if tiny pieces of cut material are sucked into your furnace's air intake, they could clog up filters in a jiffy. Unfortunately, since some materials contain acrylics, they can create dangerous black smoke if they make their way into your furnace's combustion chamber.
• Wood Projects: In addition to introducing flammable materials like sawdust and paint fumes to your utility closet, woodworking also draws huge amounts of power, which could interfere with the functionality of your furnace. If your electrical panel isn't designed to handle running sanders, band saws, and air compressors in addition to your furnace, it could overload wiring, which could spark a house fire.

To fend off trouble, never use the area near your furnace for craft projects—regardless of how large the space is.

2: Keep Kids Away

Unfortunately, craft tables aren't the only thing you might be tempted to set up near your furnace. Some homeowners decide to use the area as a laundry space, a storage room, or a hiding place for gifts. Unfortunately, if you need to entertain kids while you take care of your weekly chore list, you might be tempted to let your child play near furnaces. Here are a few dangerous issues that could occur if your children have easy access to your home furnace:

• Burns: Since furnace grills are near combustion chambers, they tend to get exceptionally warm. Unfortunately, if your child decides to play around those vents, they could be burned.
• Mechanical Failures: Kids love to stick tiny toys through holes, but when it comes to your furnace, it could create a world of trouble. If your child inserts small objects like paper, marbles, sand, or plastic toys into your heater, it could create dangerous mechanical failures.

Since children love to play in forbidden areas, do everything you can to make the space around your furnace less appealing. Don't use your furnace room to store old toys or holiday gifts. If you have to work on something in your utility room, ask someone to watch your children, or hold them at all times to keep them out of trouble.

By staying safe around your home furnace, you might be able to get more done and protect your family. For more tips on keeping your furnace in safe, working order, contact a local heating service.