Friendly Public Service Reminder

[CT-Mike]

I got tired of having portable CO detectors to supplement the smoke detectors in the house, so I decided to replace the smokes with combo smoke/CO detectors.

In the process of doing this, I was reminded that detectors have a life span of typically 10 years. Since ours are 12 years old (when we built the house), it was past time to replace them.

Please check how old your detectors are and replace if necessary.

 

[maverick06]

and if you are going to replace the smoke detectors, I would suggest looking into the dual detector units, photo and ionization. especially with the wood stoves, the photo detectors are important!

 

[velvetfoot]

But there are no Photo/Ion/CO combos, alas.

 

[CT-Mike]

But there are no Photo/Ion/CO combos, alas.

Sadly that seems to be true, but I feel that the smoke/CO combo that is available is better than a smoke only.

 

[firefighterjake]

And most CO detectors should be replaced every 3-7 years . . . depending on the manufacturer. A lot of folks don't know this.

 

[Ashful]

Our new hard-wired (with battery backup, of course) dual CO/smoke detectors stated to replace 7 years after install. In fact, they have a "feature," where they'll start incessantly beeping 7 years after the battery is first installed, something guaranteed to piss me off 6-1/2 years from now.

Edit: damn... FFJake types faster than me.

 

[nate379]

My CO detector kept going off for no reason so I took it down. Still sitting on the counter in the kitchen without battery

For a while the darn smoke alarms were so sensitive I could barely boil a kettle of water on teh stove without them going off .... About a month ago the stove backdrafted when I was in the garage. Came in the house and it was a fog of smoke. Never went off. Frigging junk!

 

[firefighterjake]

My CO detector kept going off for no reason so I took it down. Still sitting on the counter in the kitchen without battery

For a while the darn smoke alarms were so sensitive I could barely boil a kettle of water on teh stove without them going off .... About a month ago the stove backdrafted when I was in the garage. Came in the house and it was a fog of smoke. Never went off. Frigging junk!

Could depend on the type of detector and the type of smoke (or steam in the one case) . . . Dateline just did a story on this yesterday . . . something that is pretty well known in fire prevention . . . ionization detectors (the most commonly found smoke detector) detect a fire that is typically associated with a fast, flaming fire whereas photo-electric detectors best detect fires associated with slow, smoldering fires. In theory either type offers adequate protection . . . in reality what I recommend and most other experts recommend is a combo unit or some of each type in the home to offer the best detection.

 

[velvetfoot]

I've noticed more spider false alarms with the photoelectrics.