Smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms provide peace of mind by alerting you of a fire or gas leak and giving enough time for safe escape before symptoms emerge.
Install smoke and CO detectors on each level of the home as well as rooms containing fuel-burning appliances like stoves, fireplaces, or boilers.
Detection
Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are one of the best tools available to protect you and your family against fires and fatal poisonings. Regular installation and inspection should ensure maximum effectiveness for optimal safety of both home and family alike.
Working smoke alarms provide early warning of danger, making them the single most important method to preventing fatal fires. Carbon monoxide alarms also play a vital role in protecting lives from toxic levels of this invisible and odorless gas that are detected.
Install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors throughout your home, from every level to outside each bedroom and even in your kitchen and living room if there’s an electric stove or furnace in place.
Many modern smoke and carbon monoxide detectors can even connect directly with home security systems or cell phone apps for added convenience, offering people who want all their home security products in one location a great solution.
Prevention
Smoke alarms play an essential role in protecting lives from fire deaths and injuries, and helping occupants escape safely in case of an outbreak.
Install smoke alarms throughout your home in all sleeping areas and outside each separate sleeping space to help protect from potential fire hazards. Make sure each alarm is connected to a power source or battery-operated.
When purchasing a smoke detector, check its label to ensure it has been tested and certified by its manufacturer. Replace its batteries annually at least.
Smoke detectors come in various forms, from ionization and photoelectric models to dual sensor models and alarms with flashing lights, vibrations and sounds to notify those with hearing impairments of fires. Ionization detectors tend to be more sensitive to fast-moving fires while photoelectric detectors tend to detect slow-burning ones more accurately. Ionization detectors tend to detect flames first while photoelectric ones detect more slowly burning fires; there are even alarms with flashing lights vibration and sounds designed specifically to warn people with hearing impairments of fire risks. Ionization models tend to detect more fast moving flames while photoelectric models do better at sensing slow burning fires; while Ionization detectors tend to detect fast moving fires than their photoelectric counterparts do detecting.
Symptoms
Carbon monoxide (CO) is an extremely poisonous gas created when fuels such as gasoline, natural gas, wood pellets, coal and propane are burned incompletely.
CO, when inhaled into your lungs, deprives your body of oxygen, leading to headaches, dizziness, nausea and weakness in addition to heart failure and death in extreme cases.
CO detectors will sound an alarm when dangerous levels of carbon monoxide gas are detected, providing early warning to leave the space and seek safety elsewhere.
Installing a UL-approved CO alarm near sleeping areas is the only effective way to safeguard against carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). All homes with fuel-burning appliances such as heaters, stoves and gas ranges should have at least one such alarm installed for protection.
Homeowners should have their homes and fuel-burning appliances regularly inspected by certified professionals to check for improper connections, visible rust or staining and any possible chimney damage.
Treatment
Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are essential home safety devices. In case of fire, they allow people to escape safely before it is too late.
A smoke detector works by detecting smoke before it reaches the ceiling and sounding an alarm. It features a slit in its case leading to its main detection chamber for quick access.
As smoke enters a chamber, it alters how light is reflected by photocell sensors and alters their response accordingly.
Photoelectric alarms differ from traditional smoke detectors in that they use light as their detector, instead directing a beam of light towards a sensing chamber and when that light passes through, it alters how light is emitted by a sensor, potentially setting off alarm.
