It started with a question nobody in the class could answer.
“Where is your water shutoff?” A firefighter asked it in a community classroom, again and again, for years. Most people didn't know. Dwell Secure is his answer.
Andrew Leith has a heart for serving his community. Over a career of more than twenty years with the Shoreline Fire Department, north of Seattle, he saw a disturbingly common pattern: homeowners who didn't know the basics of their own homes. Homes that flooded because nobody could find the water shutoff. People in danger because nobody knew how to shut off the gas.
Around 2012, the department's public information officer asked him to teach disaster-preparedness classes. The curriculum covered the usual list of supplies. But in class after class, the people in the room admitted they didn't know how to shut off their utilities, and most couldn't even say where the shutoffs were.
On a normal day that doesn't matter much. Somebody calls 911 and a crew arrives in minutes. In a windstorm, an earthquake or a hard freeze, when thousands of calls come in at once, it matters a great deal. The water keeps running. The gas keeps leaking. And the people who could stop it are standing a few feet from the valve.
Knowing how to shut off a property's utilities can save a property, a neighborhood, or a life.— Andrew Leith, Why I Started Dwell Secure
From a classroom to your pocket.
- 1999
The first call
Andrew Leith begins his career in the fire service. Over the next two decades he'll respond to floods, fires and gas leaks across Shoreline, Washington.
- c. 2012
The classes
Shoreline Fire asks Andrew to teach disaster preparedness to the public. The same gap shows up in every session: people can't find their own shutoffs.
- The years between
The idea
An app that lets anyone store and find their utility shutoffs, with photos, and share them with the people who need them. The idea gets “kicked around for several years.”
- May 2022
Dwell Secure 1.0
The first version arrives on the App Store, free, from Chasing Bacon LLC. Mark where your utilities are and keep photos of each one.
- January 2023
dwellsecure.com and the blog
Andrew tells the story in Why I Started Dwell Secure, and the team shares how to find your water shutoff.
- 2023
Android
Dwell Secure comes to Google Play, so every household can use it, whatever phones are in it.
- April 2026
Version 3.0, with FireTrex
A ground-up rebuild: emergency guides, interactive floor-plan and satellite maps, maintenance schedules, a property health checkup, vendors, messaging and edit, view or emergency-only sharing. It works offline and runs on iOS and Android.
- 2026
FireTrex Responder
Approved fire and EMS agencies can scan a household's Dwell Secure QR code and see the residents, medical needs and pets the family chose to share. How it works.
- Now
The document vault
End-to-end encrypted storage for the papers you need when the house is gone: deeds, policies and manuals, encrypted on your device before they ever leave it.
Built with the people who answer the call.
Since 2010, FireTrex has built software for firefighters, paramedics and the clinicians who back them up: training and credential tracking for departments, staffing and dispatch tools, study aids for Nevada's fire academy, and an ECG rhythm trainer.
Dwell Secure brings the homeowner platform. FireTrex brings fifteen years of fire-service technology. Together we built Dwell Secure 3.0 and FireTrex Responder, the companion app that lets an approved crew see who's inside a home before they step through the door, and only when the family has said yes.
Preparedness is knowing, not owning.
Know before you need to.
The middle of an emergency is the worst time to learn where the shutoff is. Ten minutes on a quiet afternoon changes everything.
Everyone in the house, not just one person.
The person who knows where everything is won't always be home. Spouses, kids, tenants and sitters should all be ready.
Help the helpers.
When crews arrive knowing who's inside and who needs help getting out, minutes are saved where minutes matter most.
Find your shutoffs before you need them.
Dwell Secure is free to download. Set up your first home in an afternoon, and give everyone who lives there the same peace of mind.
