[DangeloInspections]

Good morning all! Doing a search here on this forum for "smoke detectors", 74 threads come up. Suffice to say there has been much discussion about the subject.

In one of the other threads much like this one, here is a post I posted.

Folks....One must read the law carefully and not jump to conclusions.

The law basically says that IF your home has battery only smoke detectors and it is time to replace them, you must replace them with the new sealed battery 10 year smoke detectors.

If your home has hard wired detectors, the law does not apply.

If you have "battery only" detectors and they have been replaced less then ten years ago and are working fine, you may continue to use them , and replace the battery annually. However, because of the cost of batteries, you may want to replace the complete unit with one of the new 10 year sealed battery smoke detectors.

ALL smoke detectors, in my opinion, (and the NFPA's) should be replaced every ten years.

This law was enacted mainly because some older homes and apartments have had battery only smoke detectors installed where foolish people have removed the batteries for whatever reason, thus leaving their home without any smoke detector protection. These new detectors will stop that.

This new law also allows builders to install these types of detectors instead of the hard wired type in new construction, as another option....but that is another topic that at this time does not relate to The Villages......

SO...if your home has hard wired detectors this new law does not really apply to you. If your home does not, and you have "old" battery only detectors, when it comes time to replace them you will need to replace them with these newer 10 year types that cannot have the battery removed.

Hope that helps.....basically because most everyone in The Villages has hard wired detectors with battery back up, nothing here applies.....

Frank

I have done additional research on the subject of Lithium 9 volt batteries, and found that in SOME cases they are not lasting as long as advertised. Currently they cost around 3-4 times the amount of the regular Alkaline batteries. Seeing that if you buy your smoke alarm batteries ahead of time and kindly call the Fire Department on the NON EMERGENCY number, (not 911) they will schedule a time to come out to your home and install them for free. This is a good public service, as many folks should not be up on a ladder.

Because of this, I still recommend replacing your smoke detector batteries once a year with 9 volt Alkaline batteries. This should prevent that 2am chirping and trying to find out which one it is doing the chirping....

A few other tips.....NEVER paint them. If you are doing dusty drywall remodeling, cover them in the affected room and turn off the A/C so the dust does not get everywhere.

We can also get into the differences between ionization detectors and photoelectric detectors, as well as dual ones, but that is a different subject...

Frank