For Safety’s Sake, Get Two Kinds Of Smoke Alarms

I write about carbon monoxide poisoning and the necessity for carbon monoxide detectors in this blog, but I’m going to digress and talk about smoke alarms.

That’s because while most people think they are safe with just one type of smoke detector, the frightening truth is that they aren’t. The NBC  show “Dateline” recently did a great report, a potentially life-saving report, on why people need both ionization and photoelectric smoke detectors to truly be safe from fire.

I didn’t know, and I doubt most people are aware, that there even are two kinds of smoke alarms. Consumer Reports laid out the issue on them quite well, coming up with the same advice that “Dateline” did: You need both.

http://homes.yahoo.com/news/why-you-need-two-kinds-of-smoke-alarms-030151751.html

The most typical smoke alarm found in homes works on ionization technology. And while these kinds of alarms successfully detect fires that flare up in flames, they don’t perform well when it comes to detecting smoldering fires, such as might start in a couch, according to Consumer Reports.

“Dateline” set up a demonstration where it had three ionization smoke detectors in a room where a soldering iron had been inserted in a couch pillow, starting it to slowly burn without any immediate flames. It took about a half hour for the three ionizatiion detectors to go off, triggered by smoke. The couch then burst into flames.

They did that demonstration again, but this time included one photoelectric smoke alarm along with the three ionization alarms.  The photoelectric alarm went off very shortly after the couch started smolderling.

However, photoelectric smoke detectors, which are more expensive than the ionization ones, aren’t good at detecting flaming fires.

That’s why Consumer Reports and “Dateline” recommend that you install both ionization and photoelectric smoke alarms, or that you buy and install one that employs both technologies.

Consumer Reports also wisely recommends that people install carbon monoxide detectors in their homes, which it said is important now that more people are using generators during storms.

Consumer Reports has a buying guide for both smoke detectors and carbon monoxide alarms.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/co-and-smoke-alarms.htm?EXTKEY=AYAHRE02