Smoke Alarms Expire

Every year I would faithfully take down all the smoke detectors in my home and replace their batteries whether they needed to be replaced or not. My motivation was to prevent that the low battery chirp at two in the morning! Then one day it was drawn to my attention that the smoke alarms have an expiration date ten years from the date of manufacture. You can find the date of manufacture on the back of the alarm, which means you must take them down off the ceiling to find the date. In addition to the monthly tests and yearly battery inspections you need to verify that your smoke detector is less than ten years old. Conveniently, manufactures now offer smoke detectors with ten-year batteries that don’t need to be replaced. However, you still must test them to ensure they are working properly and are less than ten years old. See below for some alarming statistics from the National Fire Protection Association.

·        Three out of five home fire deaths result from fires in properties without working smoke alarms.

·        The risk of dying in a home fire is cut in half in homes with working smoke alarms.

Stay safe out there!