Smoke Detectors: The Facts

5/10/2021 (Permalink)

Having working smoke detectors in your home in incredibly important and can save your life. Smoke spreads faster than fire within a home, but doors and different levels of a home can impede the path of the smoke. That’s why it is recommended that smoke detectors be installed in each bedroom and outside each sleeping area, and on each level of your home.

On levels without bedrooms, install smoke detectors in living room/family room, or near the stairway to the next level. Smoke alarms in the basement should be install on the ceiling near the staircase. Smoke alarms should be installed at least 10 feet from each cooking appliance.

Mount smoke alarms high on walls or ceiling. Never paint smoke alarms, this can impair the device from operating properly.

-For the best protection, connect all smoke alarms so when one goes off…they all go off.

-If you home is large, you may need to install more fire alarms than usual.

-Test your smoke alarms 1x a month for insuring the device is working properly.

-People who are deaf can use a different kind of alarm (a strobe light, or bed shaker for instance).

-Replace all smoke alarms after 10 years.

-Replace batteries in smoke alarms each season.

-On the market now are smoke alarms coupled with carbon monoxide detectors.

So the bottom line is, lets keep our batteries fresh in our smoke detectors. Let’s keep them positioned well within our homes. Let’s keep enough of them in our home based on the size of our home.

On average 2,620 people die from fires within their homes each year. 1 in every 320 homes will report a fire in a five year period. It has been reported that about 60% of those fires took place within a home that had a non-working smoke detector.

For more information you can visit:

https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/smoke_alarms.html

Or: https://www.oregon.gov/osp/programs/sfm/Pages/Smoke-CO-Alarms.aspx