I have a few questions about CO detectors - We haven't put any in, know that we should :red: The house currently has three hard wired Firex model FADC / 4618 smoke detectors installed. (they were put in ~2000, replacing some earlier units) Firex makes a combined Smoke & CO detector
the model 1200 that looks like a direct plug in replacement. It appears to be readily available off the net for about $40 Anyone have any experience with these, good, bad, or indifferent?
Am I reasonably safe in assuming that anyplace where a smoke detector was good would also be OK for a CO detector?
I notice they don't seem to have the readout for CO concentration that some posters mention having on their units - does this make that much difference?
I also have a question as relates to placement and code / safety. As I mentioned there are three units, two I think are pretty good for location, but I'm not sure about the third.
Unit 1. - The living room is a large cathedral space, contains the wood stove. There is an open flight of stairs to a landing / loft area on the 2nd floor, which leads to the master suite. The SD is at the top of this flight of stairs, just outside the door to the master suite. I think this is a good spot?
Unit 2. - Next to the living room is a kitchen / dining area (with a gas stove) on the other side of this area is a hall that T's off to two spaces that we currently use as offices, but probably would be counted as bedrooms, and the bath. The SD is in the ceiling of this hall. This is the one we are most positive works, as it occasionally gets set off by over enthusiastic cooking :lol: Judging by that, I think this is also a good spot, certainly its the only place that would give coverage to those two rooms.
Unit 3. - There is a flight of stairs going from the KD area down to the basement, right under the flight described in Unit 1 above. It opens into a large basement "rec room" which contains our almost never used backup stove, and leads to the room that has the gas HVAC furnace and water-heater. The stairs are totally open. The SD is in the basement ceiling at the foot of the stairs.
Presumably this would catch any smoke from basement fires before it got upstairs, but I'm not sure if it is 100% OK, as my reading of the code suggests that I really should have a detector in the actual room that has the furnace and h/w heater?
Do we actually need a detector in that room? If I do, is a standalone unit OK? (it would be a pain to tie into the other three existing units?
Also we have a gas clothes drier in a laundry room between the garage and the living room where the woodstove is, again with no detector in that room, although presumably any problem would be picked up by the same detector that would pick up problems with the wood stove. - Again is this a room that actually needs a detector, or is the current setup OK?
Gooserider