Do You Need an Electrician to Install a Smoke Detectors in Your Home?

A smoke detector is a crucial piece of safety equipment for your home. It is designed to respond to the presence of smoke particles in the air by setting out a loud alarm. This alerts you to the danger no matter when it occurs, even if it is late at night while you are sleeping, giving you enough time to escape from the house and avoid serious burn injuries or death. 

Whether you hire an electrician in Saskatoon to install your smoke detectors depends on what kind you choose. You have several options available. 

What Are the Two Different Types of Smoke Detectors?

The two different types of smoke detectors are battery-powered and hard-wired. Hard-wired smoke detectors integrate directly into your home’s electrical system. Battery-powered smoke detectors are self-contained. It is easy to install them with a bracket that mounts on the wall. Hard-wired smoke detectors usually have a battery backup as well. That way, they continue working even in the event of a power outage, which may be more likely in the event of an electrical fire. 

What Are the Advantages of Hard-Wired Smoke Detectors?

Hard-wired detectors offer several advantages over their battery-powered counterparts. One of the biggest is that, because they integrate into your home’s electrical system, they can all be interconnected with one another. This means that when one detector is triggered, all the detectors in the house will go off at the same time, meaning that you should hear them regardless of where you are. 

If a hard-wired smoke detector has a battery backup, the batteries will occasionally wear down and need to be replaced. However, you will not need to replace them as often as you would for smoke detectors that only operate on a battery. Furthermore, with two different sources of power, the chances that your smoke detectors will fail at a critical moment are very slim. Hard-wired smoke detectors also last much longer than their battery-powered counterparts. 

Where Should You Have Smoke Detectors Installed?

Experts recommend that each home have several smoke detectors to ensure that you can hear the alarm from anywhere in the house. There should be at least one smoke detector on every level of the house. In the basement, the smoke detector should be near the foot of the stairs. Each bedroom or sleeping area in the house should have a smoke detector of its own in addition to the one smoke detector required for each level. 

Smoke detectors should always be installed in the ceiling or, if this is impossible or impractical, on the wall within 12 inches of the ceiling. Some people make a point of installing a smoke detector in the kitchen, but experts advise against this because of the risk of false alarms. 

Why Should You Have an Electrician in Install Your Hard-Wired Smoke Detectors?

Any time you are dealing with any electrical device, you should hire an electrician to install it rather than attempting to handle it yourself. This is especially true if you do not have any experience working with electricity. 

There are two main reasons why you should have hard-wired smoke detectors professionally installed. First, working with electricity when you do not know what you are doing is dangerous. You could put yourself at risk for an electric shock, which could cause death or serious injury. Second, if you try to install the detectors yourself and you don’t know what you are doing, you may install them improperly, meaning that they may not work when you really need them. 

Find an Electrician in Saskatoon From Handyman Connection

The installation of a smoke detector is too important to leave to chance. This is one of the electrical repair services that we specialize in at Handyman Connection, so contact us for more information.