Fire Extinguisher Checks

[dmccarty]

The other problem with smoke detectors is that they will go off if there is dust in the air or humidity. Our code requires a detector in each bedroom, outside each bedroom and interconnected.

The problem we had was that these things would go off in the spring at midnight or early in the morning. We would have to put our hearts back in our chest, quiet the screaming children, and I would climb up on a ladder to unplug the stupid things we would go back to sleep. Sorta.

From reading the find print on all of the detectors I could get my hands on as well as some models on the Internet, high humidity sets these things off. Its just the way the technology works. I sure don't feel like our house had high humidity when these things went off but they did.

If anyone knows of a detector that might work let me know.

I do keep fire extinguishers in the kitchen, have two, and I have one in the truck. I had two in the truck but one finally bit the dust so to speak but it had to 15 years old. Need to go buy a few more now that I think about it.

I wont buy products made from the large, nationwide fire equipment company in Mebane, NC. More than a few years ago there was a couple of kids at NSCU that had a class were they had to come up with a product, develop a business and market plans around that product. The company in Mebane stole the product from these kids. The kids had designed a box with labels and photos for their products. The company even stole the box design. The kids sued and won but I won't due business with this company.

Later,
Dan

 

[Bird]

Dan, in addition to the smoke alarm and CO detector and alarm, our motorhome had an LPG leak detector. Great idea, right? One small problem. Exhaust fumes would activate the LPG leak detector and that would shut off the propane at the tank. The first time that happened, it was no big deal. But, on October 31, 1993, we were parked with the left side of the motorhome close to a hedge and building, and in 3 or 4 inches of snow in WV. I fired up the generator to make coffee with the electric coffee pot, and the wind was from the right direction to set off the LPG detector which turned off the LPG which meant the furnace provided no heat.

We had planned to move on down the road later than day anyway, so we just left a good bit earlier than planned. But as soon as we got far enough south to get into warm weather, I bought a toggle switch and some wire and rigged a bypass so if necessary, I could flip the toggle switch to bypass the LPG leak detector and keep the gas on.

And then the problem never happened again, so that switch was never used.

 

[medicshawn]

Jim, when we were full time RVers, we had a CO detector in the bedroom and an LPG leak detector in the kitchen area in addition to the smoke detector. But now we're in a total electric home and only have smoke detectors. Of course, I think they're both working properly, in spite of their age, and we have the fire extinguisher, actually in the garage, but that's just the other side of the door from the kitchen/dining area. I like the idea of a battery backup type of smoke detector, but I don't know that they're worth the extra cast.

I don't want to beat a dead horse but properly working smoke detectors are cheap insurance. You don't know what happened at your house before you moved in but if there was a renovation who knows what's accumulated in there. If nothing else replace them one at a time so that over a couple of months they have all been taken care of. Trust me it isn't always the other guy.

 

[dmccarty]

Shawn I think you were addressing my note.

The house was new and we built it. The detectors were brand new. They where covered until we moved into the house in January. The detectors started failing 4-6 months later. New batteries did not help. Humidity was the only valid answer. They ONLY false activated after midnight. Certainly no dust getting kicked up by people moving. The HVAC was not in use because it was not needed. Only reason I could figure was high humidity. Which if you read the small print is a limitation of the technology.

For years I wanted sprinklers in the house. At first the code did not support home sprinkler systems. Then the code changed. I looked at the cost. Not bad but not good either. I called up the insurance company and asked how much my premium would be reduced if we had a fire suppression system in the house. The answer was not much. The lower premiums would never pay for the system. That tells me that the odds of my house catching fire much less burning down are right close to zero.

We do heat the house with a wood stove. But for it to cause a fire the double wall SS chimney would have to develop a hole. For the stove proper to cause a fire, the door would have to be open and a log would have to roll 6-15 feet from the stove to get to something to burn. The floor is finished concrete. I suppose a spark could exit the chimney but I have never seen a spark go out the chimney. We clean the chimney often and it never has had creasote build up.

Since we don't smoke that is not an issue. I keep the wifey out of the kitchen as much as possible so that further reduces our fire risk. We don't fry much and now I usually do it outside. A neighbor we had when I was a kid almost burned down his house because the fry oil caught on fire. Instead of putting the lid on the pot like his Scout Son would have done he picked up the pot and put it in the sink. Then turned on the water. He got burned and the drapes caught fire. We dont have drapes. I would put a lid on the pot. And now a days the hot oil is outside.

The only person I know who has had a house fire was an Uncle whose house was hit by lightning as well as burning oil mover mentioned above.

The house could catch fire. We could die. The odds are not very high.

The odds are very high that we will stroke out from continuing false alarms and the stress of no sleep. Not to mention loss of hearing.

If someone knows of a smoke detector that does not go off because of humidity I would love to have them. But I could not find them.

Later,
Dan

 

[Bird]

Dan, I've had both battery powered and hard wired smoke alarms and never had a "false alarm"; i.e., the only time one has gone off was when something in the kitchen was over cooked or a fire was lit in the fireplace without opening the flue. And neither of those things have happened in many, many years. We both quit smoking, and even though this house has a woodburning fireplace that was used in the past, I cleaned it out real good when we bought the place, and we've never lit a fire in it.

 

[dmccarty]

Bird that is what is so funny about our detectors. When we first moved it I had not quite figured out all the tricks of running our wood stove so I would dump smoke out of the stove from time to time. Not bad enough to stain the ceiling though. There is a smoke detector 6-8 feet from the stove. None of the detectors ever went off.....

These detectors are hard wired with battery backup.

But in the spring in the middle of the night they would go off. No fire running. They would just go off.

In our old city house the alarm would sometimes go off whenn we had the first really cold spell. The heat strips would turn on and burn off dust. We would buy really good air filters but the dust would still get in there an burn off. Nothing like waking up to a screaming smoke detector.

Later,
Dan

 

[Bird]

Dan, our house for the last 11 years before I retired had gas heat and each year the first time we turned the heat on, you could smell the dust being burned off, and yes, I had replaced the original air filter with the best I could buy, but that never set off the smoke alarms. For a couple of years, that odor "alarmed" me a bit, but I got used to it. In this total electric house with a heat pump, I've never noticed that odor.

 

[mjarrels]

Years ago, I bought my wife a fire extinguisher for her birthday (BAD IDEA).

mark

 

[J_J]

I don't know the answer you want, but I have lived in Florida under severe humidity conditions for over thirty years. I don't think I have ever heard that moisture would set off fire alarms. I have not heard them go off because of humidity, only smoke. However, if moisture were to form on a cold fire detector lens, it might confuse the alarm. I test mine by putting smoke near it. If I am cooking and things smoke a little, the alarm will go off, but that is to be expected.

I don't remember if you said they were hard wired, but a voltage interruption might trigger the alarm.

Have you changed brands of smoke alarms, and does it still do the same?

 

[medicshawn]

Ok this has kinda gotten off topic and is about to go further so.

I work full time as a Firefighter Paramedic as well as working part time for the Medical Examiners as a death investigator. I've seen my share of injury, tragedy, and death. Very few people except those who are trying to commit suicide anticipate interaction with police fire ambulances or heaven forbid the medical examiner. I don't wish bad upon anyone I would happily sit at the fire station without having to go anywhere. Unfortunately that isn't going to happen in my lifetime. I'm very familiar with waking up from a dead sleep putting your clothes on and running to an emergency and performing as close to 100% as possible. Done it a couple of thousand times, doesn't get any easier. But I still love my job.

There are a million ways to have a fire. Your dryer, appliances, power surge (had one of those during the snow storm got in the walls and almost burned the house down). Cooking fires are just about at the top, candles, space heaters, light bulbs a nick in your electrical wiring that doesn't show up for years, a belt or bearing that goes bad in your HVAC. That was the first 20 that came to mind. Nobody I interact with was expecting a problem. Smoke detectors and fire extinguishers save millions of lives every year and are very cheap. Test them, replace them, put new batteries in them.

Humidity can cause problems in detectors even if covered up it can get into the circuit boards and cause issues. We have plenty that are near a bathroom door and go off after a steamy shower. The dust the first time you turn on your heat and it burns the dust off the coil every year in the fall.

Sprinklers are geting ready to become code nationally for residential construction. They don't get you much of a discount because they can cause water damage which can be just as expensive as the fire.