I had never lit my stove and forgotten about it - until today!

Joful said:

Yeah... about that. He's a quiet kid, who likes to ponder things a while on his own, and then he'll hit you with a question an hour (or three days) later.

So, I'm getting him ready for bed an hour after we're done with the fire talk, and he starts asking all these follow up questions, like what to do if dad's on fire, etc. Then he starts crying, and asking who will take care of him if mommy and daddy die in a fire. Not exactly what I had planned.

I'm sure there will be more questions tomorrow... or ten days from now.

Click to expand...

If Dad is on fire . . . Dad would stop, drop to the ground, cover his eyes and roll. What Jr. can do is call 911 if necessary or remind dad to cool burns under cool water. Turn it around so Jr. realizes things will usually be OK and he can be part of the solution.

Mommy and Daddy dying in a fire . . . Turn it around. It is highly unlikely this would happen in the home due to the fact that we have smoke detectors and now we know what to do in case of fire blah blah blah.

It's easy for kids to latch on to different things . . . I remember at that age seeing a story on the evening news about a plane crash. For a long time every time I saw a plane in the sky I was afraid it was going to crash into my house and kill everyone.

Lots of good info in this thread. My problem is that after i get out of the shower the smoke detector in our bedroom goes off because of the steam(?) and my kids have started to ignore it. They see me waffing a towel at the alarm to make it go off that I'm afraid they are losing a sense of what a fire alarm is there for. Do they make detectors that dont go off because of steam?

Schmev said:

Lots of good info in this thread. My problem is that after i get out of the shower the smoke detector in our bedroom goes off because of the steam(?) and my kids have started to ignore it. They see me waffing a towel at the alarm to make it go off that I'm afraid they are losing a sense of what a fire alarm is there for. Do they make detectors that dont go off because of steam?

Click to expand...

Sounds like you have a photoelectric type detector in your bedroom. These are good at detecting slow, smoldering fires. There is another type of detector, called an ionization type. These look for smoke emitted by hotter fires, and wouldn't be as sensitive to steam. I just make sure to turn on the vent fan in our bathroom before taking a shower.

I have a piezo buzzer connected to a temperature controller that alarms when the temperature gets near 700. The intent is just to tell me when to go close the bypass, but definitely gives me great piece of mind. It's loud enough to hear from anywhere in the house.

Schmev said:

Lots of good info in this thread. My problem is that after i get out of the shower the smoke detector in our bedroom goes off because of the steam(?) and my kids have started to ignore it. They see me waffing a towel at the alarm to make it go off that I'm afraid they are losing a sense of what a fire alarm is there for. Do they make detectors that dont go off because of steam?

Click to expand...

You could just move the detector to a location where false alarms don't happen.

brant2000 said:

I have a piezo buzzer connected to a temperature controller that alarms when the temperature gets near 700. The intent is just to tell me when to go close the bypass, but definitely gives me great piece of mind. It's loud enough to hear from anywhere in the house.

Click to expand...

Homebrew, or something commercial? Might be handy as a flue temp probe, for the same purpose (I close at 550F on the pipe).

Joful said:

You could just move the detector to a location where false alarms don't happen.

Click to expand...

That would require a ladder, and a screwdriver, and....

screw it, you're right!

Joful said:

Homebrew, or something commercial? Might be handy as a flue temp probe, for the same purpose (I close at 550F on the pipe).

Click to expand...

It's a homebrew setup with a few inexpensive items that can be picked up on ebay. I have a number of different types of controllers that I use to adjust air and water temps and for overheat protection.

Here's the basic elements you'd need to do a flue temp buzzer.

Controller
Thermocouple
Buzzer

You would also need a source for 12 V DC, to engage the buzzer. This could either be from a wall wart, battery, or other type of power supply.

Joful said:

Homebrew, or something commercial? Might be handy as a flue temp probe, for the same purpose (I close at 550F on the pipe).

Click to expand...

See my post #44 Mine was $75 incl shipping.

I use an Amprobe TMD-50, which is a dual-thermocouple meter with basic recording functions (min, max, ave, etc.), but no alarm. It works so darn nice, being very clean, user friendly, and keeping a single set of batteries for more than a year, I'm thinking I might just upgrade to a TMD-55W. They have wireless data logging, and built-in alarms, which would be very handy for me. I'd like to put one probe in the flue, with an alarm to engage the cat, which would eliminate lots of checking on the stove twice a day while waiting for it to get up to engagement temp. The second alarm would be for cat over-temp, and could even be setup to alert me on my phone.

Well, now that all the excitement has passed, you need to read this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/house

It's been posted here before, but worth a revisit.

edit: and when you're done that one, read this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/dog_paradox

Schmev said:

Lots of good info in this thread. My problem is that after i get out of the shower the smoke detector in our bedroom goes off because of the steam(?) and my kids have started to ignore it. They see me waffing a towel at the alarm to make it go off that I'm afraid they are losing a sense of what a fire alarm is there for. Do they make detectors that dont go off because of steam?

Click to expand...

The basic function of a smoke detector is to ionize particles and detect a reduction in electrical current when particles in the detector are too large to sustain normal current flow. No way it will ever know the difference between a water droplet and a smoke particle. Move your smoke detector to a location where it will not see the steam and you should be fine.

And this is exactly why I built my stovepipe/stovetop alarm. Saved my absentminded bacon more than a few times

Schmev said:

Lots of good info in this thread. My problem is that after i get out of the shower the smoke detector in our bedroom goes off because of the steam(?) and my kids have started to ignore it. They see me waffing a towel at the alarm to make it go off that I'm afraid they are losing a sense of what a fire alarm is there for. Do they make detectors that dont go off because of steam?

Click to expand...

1. Move it

2. Turn on the bathroom vent

3. Consider a different type . . . chances are you have an ionization model since most of them out there are this type . . . photo-electric type may have fewer false alarms (but I wouldn't count on it.)

4. Consider a detector with a silencer/hush feature . . . at least that way you could temporary silence it quicker than standing there half naked waving a towel frantically at it.

Swedishchef said:

And I presume the temperature reading must be much more precise than with a regular probe thermometer...??

Click to expand...

The digital readout is in exact degrees. I have to admit that I have no idea how accurate it is as I would need 2 of them installed to see if they matched. I'm presuming for the $$ they would be properly calibrated. When I get a spare moment in the summer, I will remove it and check it in boiling water which is what we do with restaurant thermometers. There could be a huge difference in accuracy of calibration between 212 and 900 though.
I rely on the readout 99% of the time and just do an IR reading when I feel like playing with the cat and the red dot.