Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detectors

[Z3Dreamer]

One smoke alarm started beeping so I replaced the battery, but it kept beeping. So I READ THE MANUAL. It appears that they tend to last 10 years and mine was 11. That is why it was beeping. All 6 of mine are 11 years old. The good thing is that, the mounts on new ones are the same, if you buy from the same company. I hate rewiring those things while up on a ladder, so this is good news. Plug-n-play.

Then I got to thinking about my CO detectors. The newer looking one has a manufacture date of 1998. The older looking unit does not have a date. I called the company and they said that model is pre-2000. They say the useful life is 5-7 years.

CO mixes with air and does not rise, appreciably. Smoke rises. My CO risks are on the floor so the plug in detectors work for me. Smoke detectors are all on the ceiling. I got one combo smoke, CO detectors, 5 smoke detectors and 2 CO detectors for a rounded $150.

Your experience with similar items?

 

[joeea]

You got a good deal.

Before we sold our home earlier this year, we needed up upgrade our detectors. I had to install two combo smoke+CO detectors that were hard-wired, interconnected, with voice alarm and battery backup. Those were required by local code. Since the house was older, I only needed two, versus lots more if the house was newer.

Fortunately, the existing wiring and harness accommodated them, so installation was simple.

 

[njhowie]

Did you purchase a new/fresh battery when replacing, or did you pull one out of the drawer that you already had in the house, or maybe one purchased online? If the latter, consider buying a new brand name fresh one locally. I recently had similar happen with a smoke detector and even when I put in a new (cheap) store bought battery it was beeping. Spent the extra to put a Duracell in it and it's been normal ever since. All of our smoke detectors are well over 15 years old and continue working fine. I give them a test periodically when I'm burning something for dinner in the kitchen.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

Did you purchase a new/fresh battery when replacing, or did you pull one out of the drawer that you already had in the house, or maybe one purchased online? If the latter, consider buying a new brand name fresh one locally. I recently had similar happen with a smoke detector and even when I put in a new (cheap) store bought battery it was beeping. Spent the extra to put a Duracell in it and it's been normal ever since. All of our smoke detectors are well over 15 years old and continue working fine. I give them a test periodically when I'm burning something for dinner in the kitchen.

Name brand battery and I have a battery tester. Both the old battery and the newly purchased name brand tested fine. I am glad you are still getting service from 15 year old detectors. For less then $10 each and easy installation, it was not a hard decision to make.

 

[zinger1457]

All of our smoke detectors are well over 15 years old and continue working fine. I give them a test periodically when I'm burning something for dinner in the kitchen.

I wouldn't bet the house on it, those sensor may seem to be working but will lose sensitivity over time (> 10 years). What about the detectors away from the kitchen? Cheap price to pay to install new ones.

 

[mountainsoft]

I wouldn't bet the house on it, those sensor may seem to be working but will lose sensitivity over time (> 10 years). What about the detectors away from the kitchen? Cheap price to pay to install new ones.

Agreed, the sensors in smoke detectors lose sensitivity over time (due to decay, dust, moisture, etc.). Even if it seems to be working, it may not be sensitive enough to pick up smoke until it's really thick. The earlier you can be warned the more time you'll have to get out of the house.

Smoke detectors are relatively cheap. You can buy multi-packs for under $75 that should accommodate most houses. Surely the life of you and your family is worth $8 per year?

 

[joeea]

All of our smoke detectors are well over 15 years old and continue working fine. I give them a test periodically when I'm burning something for dinner in the kitchen.

Mine appeared fine as well.

But the local fire enforcement codes indicted that after 10 years from the date of manufacture they are supposed to be replaced. And we weren't able to pass fire inspection without doing so when we went to sell.

see: https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/smoke_alarms.html

 

[Livefree]

We sold a rental house last year and had to update smoke and co2 detectors. The fire department was required to visit and verify they were OK and placed properly.


I used smoke detectors that had an integrated battery and were good for 10 years. They had to be placed in each unit, as well as at the top and bottom of stairwells.


I was told co2 is a heavy gas and to mount those detectors low to the ground like the baseboard, otherwise if they're on the ceiling, the gas could get to you before it reached the detector

 

[Chuckanut]

CO detectors have a limited life. My beeped at me. I replaced the battery. It still beeped at me. A quick check online showed that it was past its useful life. All I was doing was running down the new battery I put into it and losing sleep.

 

[Walt34]

CO detectors have a limited life. My beeped at me. I replaced the battery. It still beeped at me.

I found that a 5 lb. hammer fixed that.

Seriously, we had the same issue just a week ago and bought a (yes, ONE) replacement CO detector that is mounted just below knee-high near the furnace in the basement.

We replaced the six smoke alarms a few months ago when they expired. They let us know that they were expired by beeping at 2:00 AM. So I had to go around removing the battery from each one and then turn off the breaker for the hardwired circuit.

Thankfully, the new ones have a button that will turn off the "expired notice" beep for eight hours at a time so hopefully we won't have to go through that exercise again.

 

[Senator]

I have so many CO detectors I can't even count. Over 100.

Change them after 7 years. It will save future issues.

 

[Zathras]

...
CO mixes with air and does not rise, appreciably. Smoke rises. My CO risks are on the floor so the plug in detectors work for me. Smoke detectors are all on the ceiling. I got one combo smoke, CO detectors, 5 smoke detectors and 2 CO detectors for a rounded $150.

Your experience with similar items?

Where we are at, minimally legal code is to have smoke and CO detectors outside of each bedroom.
We do have CO detectors simply because of code, but have no sources of CO so we went with the combo units mounted on the ceilings.

 

[Z3Dreamer]

Installed 6 new smoke detectors today. One was a combo smoke and CO. Did not have to rewire. Only trick was that putting the plug in the new detector is not easy. Real tight. Required holding new detector in one hand, plug in other hand and flashlight anywhere you can.

I was surprised that the manufacture dates of the ones that arrived today was September 2018.

Dates on old ones were 2007 and 2008.