'Time change, battery change:' Keeping your home safe from fires and carbon monoxide
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - When we turn back the clocks tomorrow night, fire safety experts say it's a good time to check your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors as well as change the batteries in both.
The days of simply putting up the detector, keeping the batteries current, and not worrying are gone.
"Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors do have a limited life," explained Patty Davis of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. "Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms do have expiration dates marked on them and in general the rule of thumb for a smoke alarm is about 10 years, it's a little bit less for a carbon monoxide alarm."
After that, they become less sensitive to the very things they're meant to detect, and if you need to replace them, Davis said to seriously consider getting inner-connected detectors so if one goes off, they all go off.
"So, then you have valuable time to get out of the house if there's a fire, and it starts in another part of your house while you're sleeping," Davis said.
If the alarms have not expired, think: "Time change, battery change."
"We encourage consumers to take advantage of a when they change their clocks," she said. "Make sure that you're changing the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Really they're a major line of defense against being killed or injured in a fire or carbon monoxide event in your home."
There are so many incidents every year of deadly fires where the homes had detectors but they were not working.
TIME CHANGE, BATTERY CHANGE:
So, if you push the test button and it works, do you really need to change the battery?
Technically no, but you still don't know how much longer that battery is going to last.
However, here's a twist for you - the guidance on where your detectors should be installed has changed over the years.
It's not an understatement to say we trust our lives to smoke and carbon monoxide detectors that we install in our homes.
Davis said that changing the batteries once a year is recommended but switching them out with the time change twice a year is a good idea.
"Important to have smoke alarms on every floor of your home, outside sleeping areas as well as inside each bedroom," she explained.
That's right, you read that correctly, she said in every bedroom.
"Because if there's a fire in the bedroom, you'll be notified immediately," Davis said.
As for carbon monoxide detectors, Davis recommends about the same - installing them on every floor and outside of sleeping areas.
She added that unless you have a sleeping area there, they should not be in the basement or in the attic.
"You can get false alarms from your carbon monoxide alarm if it's too close to your furnace," Davis cautioned. "You might also have a heating unit in your attic some homes do have that."
She said with every member of your family, decide on an evacuation plan and where you'll meet outside.
"Practice that plan ahead of time so you know what to do if the alarm goes off," she said.
The meeting spot is crucial because people are killed every year going back and forth into a home for someone who is already out safely but not in sight.
