The Importance of Smoke Alarms in Your Home

Smoke alarms that are properly installed and maintained play a vital role in reducing fire deaths and injuries. Smoke alarms save lives! If there is a fire in your home, smoke spreads fast and you need smoke alarms to give you time to get out. Having a working smoke alarm cuts the chances of dying in a reported fire in half. Almost two-thirds of home fire deaths resulted from fires in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms.

Here’s what you need to know about smoke alarms in your home:

• A closed door may slow the spread of smoke, heat and fire. Install smoke alarms in every sleeping room and outside each separate sleeping area. Install alarms on every level of the home. Smoke alarms should be interconnected. When one sounds, they all sound.
• Test your smoke alarms at least once a month.
• When a smoke alarm sounds, get outside and stay outside.
• Replace all smoke alarms in your home every 10 years. To determine the age of your smoke alarm, look at the back where you will find the date of manufacture. Smoke alarms should be replaced 10 years from the date of manufacture.
• Immediately replace any smoke alarm that does not respond properly when tested.
• Replace combination smoke-carbon monoxide alarms according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.

It’s important to have enough smoke alarms in your home. Fire research has demonstrated that with today’s modern furnishings, fires can spread much more rapidly than in the past when more natural materials were used. Because of this, having a sufficient number of properly located smoke alarms is essential to maximize the amount of available escape time. Smoke alarms should be installed inside every sleep room (even for existing homes) in addition to requiring them outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home. (Additional smoke alarms are required for larger homes.) Homes built to earlier standards often don’t meet these minimum requirements. Homeowners should recognize that detection needs have changed over the years and take proactive steps to make sure that their home has a sufficient complement of smoke alarms. Call on Handyman Connection today and we can help make sure your home has the protection it needs in the event of a fire emergency.