Tonight is the night we set our clocks back one hour. Along that line of thought, when you change your clocks, change your batteries in your smoke alarms. This needs to be done at least once a year. If you need batteries and can't afford them, let me know. We have LOTS of them and will provide them to you for free.

If you need smoke alarms and cannot afford them, LET ME KNOW! We have lots of them too and will also provide them to you at no charge.

Smoke Alarms have a 10 year life expectancy. If yours are at or near that 10 year mark, CHANGE THEM!

If I ever hear of a DTR member having a fire in their home and someone gets hurt because of a lack of smoke alarms, you better hope that fire hurts you good because if it doesn't, I'M GONNA! There's no excuse for an abscence of smoke alarms in your home when I'm offering them for free. I need to keep my DTR family members safe!

PM me if you need any of these items.

 

While your at it put a new battery in the G un Safe if it has a digital lock on it.. Like fur ball says it better to be safe than sorry

 

Good advice.

I just saw a segment on the news that standard smoke alarms may not go off for over 35 minutes in a smoldering couch type situation. This was pretty discouraging as mine were of the same brand and style they used. I will be updating mine.

Fortunately, my downstairs one is a real Nervous Norvis and will go off if you strike a match across the room!

GETTIN AFTER IT!

STAY SAFE!

 

That segment was a little misleading unfortunately. Those smoke alarms did exactly what they were designed to do as ionization types are designed to detect fast flaming fires. There are now combination detectors that will sense both types, fast flaming and slow smoldering. There are also some that will 'talk' to all the other smoke alarms in the house so that they ALL go off when only ONE senses smoke, much like a hard wired system. The only thing they haven't overcome yet is the 10 year battery. That 10 year battery is no problem for the ionization alarms as they draw virtually no power while doing their job. The photoelectric alarms draw substantially more power, and even with a lithium battery can't go for 10 years without a battery change.

 

Thanks for the reminder. My smoke alarms are all new due to an addition and renovation project on the house. The garage smoke detector went off just from starting the leaf blower outside the open bay door, breeze blowing into the garage I guess. Of course all the detectors in the house went off since they are tied together. Wife wasn't too happy but I know they work well. Will change the batteries as recommended.

 

Scott - - have you seen heat detectors used in the garage to eliminate the many "misfires" due to engines, etc? You can hard wire them into your central system.

Bob

 

Sure.... I could use 3-4 new ones if you're serious about the offer. 2upstais/2dstairs. Our mbed is up stairs and I have a mental escape plan if something like this was to ever happen but ya never know in the middle of the night.

 

Yep. They're actually required in Massachusetts. And I have them all thru our barns here in Michigan.

PM me with an address please and I'll get them out to you this week.

 

My current ones are all hard wired and go off together when one trips, usually the kitchen/hallway one or the one upstairs after a hot shower!

I change the 9v batteries every 6 months, or sooner if they get triggered.

Good advice and thanks again!

 

Hmmm, triggering the smoke detector in the kitchen every 6 months. That makes me think of my friend's wife. We swear she uses the smoke alarm as an oven timer. More than once we have arrived at their house for a dinner party to find the front door propped open, the smoke alarm blaring and some sort of cremains cooling down on the stovetop.

 

We have a standing joke around here about my wife's cooking/baking so the downstairs one gets a new battery every 3 weeks or so..

 

Also don't forget to replace the battery on your CO Detector, all of our apartment buildings are required to have them by January of next year,
Also know that a CO Detector only has a life between 3-5 years even though you keep replacing the batteries, at the end of life the detector will continually beep letting you know its life is over.

I just had problems with a CO/smoke detector in an an upscale (Asian) condo complex, the detector kept going into alarm even after I replaced it with the same kind, what people have in their home, cook, as well as what they smell like will affect the operation of the alarm.

I usually have a case of smoke detectors in my truck to replace dead ones I find, I will hear alarms chirping and the tenants think they are crickets, it is hard to keep from laughing at people being so stupid, the biggest cause of alarms in low income apartment buildings are insect infestation.

Also having a a rash of leaking fire sprinklers.

When the neighbors smoke detector went off the kids knew dinner was ready.

Jim

 

We dont have "smoke Dectectors" at all... we have wind-up "heat detectors" that have a temp sensitive cap on them, that pops off if the air temps go above whatever the cap is rated for, initiating the alarm. Our homeinspector and local fire chief say they are better than most battery operated ones?

They are set to alarm at 115 degrees( Ithink) everywhere in the house, except for the kitchen which is rated at 140 or something like that....

This last summer when the temps got to 117 outside, all of them went off if we opened a window.. and the freekin things are LOUD!!

They are made by a company called Emdeko..

 

Interesting. Never heard of them!

 

Hi Jim,

You mentioned leaking fire sprinkler heads. Any idea as to what is causing this. Are they leaks from the seats or are you referring to activations/discharges? Feel free to reply via PM if you prefer.