What You Must Know About Smoke Detectors

(CBS)  This is one of two weekends a year when it's recommended that you change the batteries in your smoke detectors, and make sure they're working right. Those weekends are when daylight-saving time begins, and when it ends in the fall.

Some 3,000 people die in house fires in the United States each year, and smoke detectors cut your chances of being trapped in a house fire by more than half, experts say.

On The Early Show Friday, consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen took a detailed look at different types of smoke detectors, and had plenty of tips about the devices.

The click here.

For word from a leading smoke detector maker, click here.

For a complete rundown of smoke alarm info from the CPSC, go to Page 2.

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[bwessels]

So often we hear about the smoke alarms with missing or disconnected batteries. They never ask WHY? The answer is simple: people disconnect them on purpose, because of false alarms. Simply put, innovation in these devices stopped 30 years ago, and they are terrible. Like the boy who cried wolf, we do not believe them and are sick of hearing them. I have a whole-house system that would regularly go off, usually at 3 a.m., and scare the heck out of my kids. We had an electrician in, and he said there was nothing "wrong" with the system. (Except the sensor technology is worthless, he left out.) Eventually we figured out that two bedrooms with reduced air circulation seemed to be the problem. And yes, we disabled those smoke detectors. I will have to trust the rest of them in the house and our own fire safety practices to avoid dying of a heart attack instead.

[tburzio]

What you really need to know is that smoke detectors are a band-aid needed after over-reaction and hysteria caused asbestos to be pulled from construction. Now many more people die from fire than complications resulting from the misuse of asbestos.

[rf35]

Oh CBS web guru, how can I trust an article with an advertising link?