Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Sense and Detect

Last month Hubby Tony had an electrician come to the house and give us an estimate for some work.  While they were walking through the house, the electrician pointed out that our smoke detectors looked old.  He said they should be replaced every ten years.  That job wasn't on the estimate list, but it was probably time to have it done. 

Our house was built about 25 years old, and when we purchased it from the original owners a couple of years later it came with a hardwired, interconnected alarm system.  Somewhere in the mid-90s those alarms were recalled. The company sent replacements for the five units (two on the main level, two upstairs, and one in the basement) which I swapped out for the defective ones. 

Tony scheduled the detector replacement work, and today we had the new equipment installed.  We got four dual sensor smoke alarms, which have both ionization and photoelectric detectors to alert us quickly to any type of fire, and one for the basement that also monitors the area for carbon monoxide problems.  All of them have a battery backup so now we're now ready for any fire-related contingencies that might occur.

Just like I did with the old ones I'll test these on a regular basis.  I hope that's the only time I hear them go off.

Five years ago today:  A Good Impression

12 comments:

  1. Interesting! Our smoke detectors are about 26 years old! Hmmm....

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  2. We have a tiny house so we only have one smoke detector, in the hallway not far from the kitchen. I set it off almost every time I make toast!

    We are having a new roof put on and in getting quotes we learned that we will be required to put smoke detectors in each bedroom as well as installing a carbon monoxide detector before the inspector will sign off on the work. Terry has bought the alarms, just waiting for the roof to go on to put them in.

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    1. When we moved into this house I had the same problem until I got the hang of the stove and oven. The joke was that 'dinner's ready when the smoke alarm goes off'!

      I think additional alarms can't be a bad idea.

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    2. Terry just plugged in the carbon monoxide alarm. It has to go somewhere low due to the gas being heavy. Oh, the things one learns in their old age!

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    3. Interesting...our combination alarm/monoxide detector was hung on the basement ceiling. Maybe that's acceptable since it's below the living area?

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  3. Excellent! I've heard that you really need to have the dual sensors to be truly safe. We just replaced one a month or so ago.

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  4. It did not occur to me to replace hard wired ones...good post today thanks.

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  5. A young woman who worked for me had a lot of remodeling work done. The day the contractors finished and left her husband got out of bed and reconnected the smoke detector in the hall. In the early morning their house caught fire and was a total loss.
    We just replaced our old wired in alarms with newer ones.

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    Replies
    1. Wow! I feel for that woman and her family.

      Glad to know you've also taken steps to make your house safer.

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