Are Your Smoke Alarms Working For You?

Smoke Alarm Maintenance Tips

Smoke detectors are one of the easiest ways to protect your family in case of a fire at your home.  Keep these smoke detector maintenance tips in mind to ensure that your smoke alarms do their job properly to help save the lives of your loved ones.

• Replace all of your smoke alarms at least every 10 years.  After a decade in service, smoke alarms are much more likely to fail.
• Use your vacuum to remove the dust off of your alarms at least once a year.  Dust covered alarms can easily fail since they cannot sense the smoke through the dust.
• Replace the batteries in all of your smoke alarms at least once a year.  Do not use long life batteries, especially in older alarms since they can cause them to work improperly.
• A good rule of thumb is to change the batteries in your smoke detectors when you spring ahead and fall back your clocks for Daylight Savings Time.
• Install both photoelectric and ionization alarms throughout your home.  Ionization smoke detectors work better at detecting fast flaming fires and photoelectric smoke detectors can better respond to smoldering, slow fires.

Along with properly maintaining your smoke alarms, properly installing your alarms is very important.  Smoke alarms should be installed inside or right outside of each bedroom in your home. You should also have smoke alarms on each level of your home.  While you should also have a smoke alarm installed near your kitchen, make sure that it is not too close to where you cook so it does not go off every time you prepare a meal.

Once you have taken the simple measure of installing and periodically maintaining smoke alarms in your home, be sure to review your homeowners policy to be certain the coverages and limits are adequate for your property in case of a loss.  Contact the insurance professionals at Abbate Insurance in New Haven, Connecticut for assistance in reviewing your insurance coverages.

Sources: https://www.esurance.com/info/homeowners/home-fire-safety-get-alarmed/ http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/08/14/11-tips-every-home-owner-needs-to-know-about-insurance/