Housing...Inside and Out

September 25, 1998
Home Smoke Detector Tips

Smoke detectors are the most powerful fire safety technology in your home if you have them. Your smoke detectors reduce your chances of dying if you have a fire by about 40 percent.

There are many kinds of fire detectors, which may be designed to detect high temperatures, rapid changes in temperature, certain gases produced in fires and so on. But fire protection in a home should start with a system of smoke detectors. You will want to use only labeled units with the mark of an independent testing laboratory.

Why smoke detectors? In a hostile fire, smoke and deadly gases tend to spread farther and faster than heat. That's one reason why fire deaths due to smoke inhalation outnumber fire deaths due to burns by two to one. Tests on the speed of warning given by smoke detectors and heat detectors for many types of typical home fires showed smoke detectors consistently give first warning often by enough of a margin to make a major difference in your chances of escaping alive. That's why your basic protection should consist of smoke detectors, with heat detectors reserved for optional extra protection in areas such as kitchens, attics, and garages, where smoke detectors are too susceptible to nuisance alarms.

For minimum protection, you should have a smoke detector outside each sleeping area and on each level of the home, including the basement if you have one. If you sleep with your doors closed, consider installing a detector in each bedroom too.

The smoke and deadly gases are very hot and they rise toward the ceiling. Therefore your detector should be on the ceiling at least 4 inches from the nearest wall, or high on a wall, 4-12 from the ceiling. If you have a high-pitched ceiling, mount the detector near the highest point. The 4-inch minimum is to keep the detector out of possible "dead air" spaces, because hot air is also turbulent and may bounce so much that it misses spots right near a surface. Similarly, a detector should not be placed near an interior door, where air movement around the doorframe might miss the detector, or near an outside door, window, or air registers, where drafts might push smoke away from the detector.

In general, put your detector squarely in the path you think smoke would take if it were heading upstairs or through your home, toward your bedrooms. Protecting the bedrooms at night is the top priority. The majority of fire deaths occur at night when people are asleep.

If your detector uses batteries, replace them at least twice a year. A good time to do this is when daylight savings time changes. Also replace them if the smoke detector chirps, signaling low battery power. Also make sure that everyone understands how important it is to have working batteries in every detector and how dangerous it is to remove detector batteries even for a short time.

Besides battery maintenance, the other maintenance is to keep your detector clean. Never paint the detector itself, and cover it if you are going to be doing some work near it that could put a lot of dust in the air. To take care of routine dust and cobwebs, vacuum or clean your detectors once a year.

A detector that isn't working is no better than no detector at all. It may even be worse, because it gives you a sense of being protected that isn't real. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) estimates that about one-third of all home smoke detectors are not working usually because of dead or missing batteries. Regular testing is the only way to make sure this doesn't happen to you. The NFPA recommends testing your detector once a week. If you test your detector once a week, you can't go more than a couple days without detector protection. If you test it less often, you could go weeks or months with no protection.

For additional information contact Operation Home Safe


Written by Dr. Francis Graham (Retired)

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