Yesterday while cooking I set off the smoke detector, no I did not burn anything. They go off when I cook over a high heat. And yesterday once they started going off they would not stop. I ended up having to disconnect them all (they are hard wired with an interconnect) and I replaced them this morning. Aaaaaaaand let me tell you, I had a sleepless night last night knowing there were no detectors installed.
https://www.southernliving.com/how-often-should-you-replace-smoke-detectors-8774122
Ours were just replaced in our rental house. They were last replaced in 2004 and our corpo landlord just doesn’t give a fuck.
I don’t think our dryer vent has been cleaned in a decade. This place is a fire trap.
Found out my dryer vent duct was disconnected on both ends. I wouldn’t be surprised 🤷
I’ve warned them about this and our gutters rotting away the wood on our patio and they told me both were tenant’s responsibility, despite a whole section on their website saying otherwise.
I couldn’t give a fuck less about this house. I close on my first HOME next week!
If you live in a state that observes time changes you should get in the habit of checking them on that day. It means you check them twice a year and you’ll be mindful of the expiration date.
The instructions in the box (who reads those right?) says to test monthly.
Okay do that.
If you’re not living in USA-land you’re probably fine to simply change the battery every few years because you’ve got a photoelectric smoke detector.
Ionization based smoke detectors (that require changing because radioactive…) are more unsafe and usually only allowed in special cases in non third world countries like the EU.
Oh and you also can’t just throw them into the trash because you know radioactivity… except in USA-land…
Photoelectric smoke detectors also need to be replaced every ten years or so, and the radioactivity of ionization alarms is well within safe levels as long as you aren’t taking them apart to eat the 241Am. They’re sensitive to different things but the photoelectric ones are probably better suited to modern home fires (but they’re more prone to false-positives from kitchen smoke).
Pointless America Bad and radiation fear-mongering.
You should know I passive aggressively want to die.
But are you fine with dying from burning or smoking inhalation?
Smoke inhalation yes burning no
Better by fire than by ICE.
That’s a reasonable reaction to the current state of things.
I’m genuinely curious: why do you need smoke detectors? I’m asking as an european that has lived without them all their life in more than one country. They are not mandatory here and not even common. What’s the reason to install ther? (I know the reason is to detect smoke, I’m asking the underlying reason behind the need to detect smoke)
They prevent death.
If you are asleep and your house catches fire, the idea is that the smoke detector will wake you up with enough time hopefully to escape the fire. That is really their primary purpose.
Some European countries do require them. Germany and Britain require smoke detectors in all residential buildings, for example.
Possibly a difference in construction materials. Most stuff in the US is made of wood and other flammable materials. From what I understand, brick/stone based materials are the most common in European buildings.
Nah, OP is just a troll. Most European countries by now have legislation to mandate them or are currently introducing these. All of them heavily advise them.
Wood as a construction material is not really the problem, it burn fairly slow. The problem is our furniture and other stuff changed from wood to MDF and petroleum based based products, reducing the time you have to react from 15 minutes to 3 minutes.
If you look at a map of where smoke detectors are mandatory and where not in the EU, it’s more about rich vs poor: https://www.q-certified.eu/en/smoke-detector-legislation-in-the-european-union/
Detect fires, save lives.
I work in EMS. When we respond to house fires in the middle of the night there’s kind of two different ways they go. When people have smoke detectors and their house catches on fire in the middle of the night they’re the ones who call us and we get on scene to find them outside their home in their pajamas, watching their house burn, very shaken up but ok. They never need anything from us ambulance-wise except maybe some blankets. When people don’t have smoke detectors in their homes and they catch on fire in the middle of the night a neighbor or passer-by calls the fire in and we get on scene and the firefighters are dragging bodies out to us.
As I mentioned in another comment, I almost died in a house fire. I had an aerosol can in a pile of clothes that caught fire from a heater, that can exploded and woke me. Otherwise I would have slept through the fire.
Your comment hits me really hard (I am sure not as hard as being on scene where they did not have detectors). But reading some of the dismissive comments I was starting to think I was over reacting, you assured me I was not.
In Germany they are mandatory for a while now. And at least my landlord sends a company to check if they still work every year, so I assume that’s mandatory too.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347808687_Analysis_of_the_effectiveness_of_the_smoke_alarm_obligation_-_Experiences_from_practice has an overview of the regulations and an analysis of the impact in Germany.
sends a company to check if they still work every year
Wtf, isn’t it just pressing a button…? Though I guess you avoid the risk of people forgetting.
It’s also required in Sweden, but the building owner is responsible for installation, whereas the people living there are responsible for testing that it still works.
The main goal is probably to have documentation proving it was checked, but the technician is also responsible to fix any issues. I already had one smoke detector replaced because the noise level was a bit below what it should be.
They are mandatory in Ireland, so please stop the “Europe” stuff.
House fires were a huge cause of death and in apartment blocks they also can let one person’s mistake kill hundreds of others.
They are mandatory in Ireland, so please stop the “Europe” stuff.
I haven’t said they are not mandatory in Europe. I have said that I am European and haven’t seen them in the countries I lived in.
Tell me, are Spain and Italy countries that for some reason disqualify you from being European or did you just have a rough morning?
No but it isn’t wise to generalise two of Europe’s less… regulated countries to just “Europe”. Pretty much every European country north of the Alps and west of the Vistula have mandatory smoke alarms/fire detection. It’s not a mystery why. 5000 Europeans a year die in residential fires and social housing, ie paid for by the tax payers, is disproportionately damaged by fire every year.
You can say where you’re from. Nobody’s coming to find you.
And yes, I’m probably more emotive about this issue than average. I’m sure that’s not a mystery why either.
Here in France rentals must have them, I believe. But I’ve never known anybody whose home caught fire. Maybe it has to do with building materials and regulations? In my région buildings are stone. My house had 90cm-thick granite walls. Radon is a bigger concern than fire.
Also in Italy, it’s rare for houses to catch fire.
But even if you live in a house made of concrete (Le Corbusier would be proud), things inside of the apartment can still catch fire.
If your smoke detectors go off when you are cooking, then the smoke detectors are too close to the kitchen. At least where I live, building code mandates one smoke detector in each bedroom, one in each hallway leading to a bedroom, and at least one smoke detector on each floor of the home. Generally, avoid placing smoke detectors near kitchens or exterior windows which, when open, are right next to a grill or other cooking appliance. Otherwise you’re going to be getting a lot of false positives.
The closest detector to the kitchen was in a bed room.
There had been a different detector in the living room but had gotten knocked down a while ago and broke (and never replaced), it was not on the interlink system, and when the other detectors would go off while cooking the one in the living room would not.
As you can see from my image, the detectors I replaced were from 2005, and needed replacing for quite some time.
nice try, big detector
They make ones now with an internal battery that lasts 10 years. No more chirping and swapping 9V batteries.
I’m fact, smoke alarms with user-replaceable batteries became illegal in Scotland a couple of years ago.
Still waiting to see if the same regulation gets applied across the entire UK, but anecdotally I’ve noticed it’s already much harder to find anything other than 10-year battery or hardwired models in my part of England.
What’s the reason behind that legislation?
Safety. What else?
You can see a news report from when it came into force here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60203081
The guidance is here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fire-and-smoke-alarms-in-scottish-homes/pages/where-and-what-to-buy/
Which includes this part on batteries:
Replaceable batteries cannot be used because the sensors in the alarm degrade over time and so will not be able to detect heat or smoke. This is why the alarm has a limited lifespan. Sealed, tamper-proof battery units must be used because they are safer than those which allow the user to change the batteries.
There have been several tragedies over the years where alarms failed because their batteries expired, or people have removed them. Any alarm you buy will have information on how long it lasts, which can be up to 10 years.
It sucks ass. I’ve gone through about 5 of them well short of 10 years. I do see that this brand released a new version, but this is the one I had. Absolute garbage. They kept giving false positives, and they have no replaceable batteries so they just become E-waste after you disable them. This is the one I had.
You know those have a 10 year warranty right? Including the specific model you linked.
How many ~$25 items do you fill out a warranty claim for? Mine went into the bin and I got another.
Not many, but I don’t buy a lot of $25 products in this day and age. Sometimes electronics fail early, that’s why there’s a warranty. I also don’t go complaining about something when it would have been replaced by warranty either.
The fact they warrant the devices through their entire expected lifespan instead of only a year is notable.
That’s all they sell at Costco now and I’m worried they won’t last 10 years. They’re kinda pricey too $70 for two.
I’ve had the same problem with them. I don’t recommend them either.
Even if they do have a warranty, they aren’t reliable enough to be worth doing the warranty claim on, imho.
I’ve gone back to the old battery style and gotten some rechargeable 9 volt.
YSK that those old detectors will most likely not have the same plugs as the old ones, either. Prepare to figure out what circuit they’re all on and a rewire with new dongles (pigtails? Not sure of the right name). Ah, what a fun weekend. 15 min turned into a couple of hours.
New ones had the same pigtail as the old one (both were Kiddie brand), but I did have one I had to rewire. As far as I can tell, they do not have a dedicated circuit, so I had to shut down the entire house.
Mine were Kidde as well. They were installed by my dad maybe 17 years ago when he built the home. I eventually found the breaker after a fun game of yelling “Is the light on?” I laughed when I found out it was on the same breaker as the septic aerator (which I had apparently also attached to a garage circuit overhead for work lights and ceiling outlets for tools due to the wall circuit overloading). Fun fact for the people who may not be familiar with septic aerators - when they lose power they have a box on a separate circuit for the failure alarm (which isn’t very loud but annoying af).
Depending on the building code / age of house it may or may not be on an individual circuit.
I think newer homes don’t so there’s one less point of failure that can prevent them for going off in a fire. I could be wrong though.
that’s my landlord’s problem 😎
Your landlord’s responsibility, your problem
It’s ok, they can paint over the smoke damage and get a new tenant.
I don’t even have smoke detectors. lol
RIP. Please get at least one.
It’s been ~6 years. lol
But it’s not a bad idea. I will.
I replace 'em every other fire.
And please check them to see if they are safe to throw in the trash before you do. Some of them contain small amounts of really nasty stuff. Even the hazardous waste dropoff on my county was reluctant to take a batch from me. They said “you’re really supposed to send those back to the manufacturer.” But they did eventually take them.
don’t sweat it. decades ago nobody slept with them and did just fine. you’ll be ok for one night.
People die every day in house fires, dumbass.
Decades ago i survived a house only because I had left an empty aerosol can of mousse in a pile of clothes. That pile started burning and caused the can to explode and wake me. Otherwise the fire would have consumed me as well.
that’s an interesting way to instantaneously combust. did they determine what the source was?
It was a space heater, I had it on a timer (we had no heating in that part of the house) and I thought I had turned it off. My laundry pile was too close to the heater, it ignited the laundry which caused the can to rupture.
The fire was isolated to my room, and my dad and I got it extinguished before the fire department arrived. We lived 20 miles outside town.
I forget what the exact cause was listed as in the report, but it was not the same as the actual cause.
that fire chief did you a solid by not including the ignition source in the official report.
if they had, your insurer would have denied any claims had you made any, and your premiums would have increased since your risk assessments would have changed.
glad to hear nobody was hurt and it wasn’t a total loss.
This is why I just go ahead and buy the new ones that come with batteries that last 10 years. You’ll have to replace the whole unit when they die anyway.
