Garage Smoke Detector

NY_Yankees_Fan · Jan 4, 2005

Rob,

Just remember you have given up early warning of a fire by trading a smoke detector for a heat detector. The detector most likely says "Not A Life Safety Device" for good reason. A heat detector will detect a fire when it reaches say 135-165F. By then you have a pretty good fire going to generate that much heat. So make sure you keep doors closed to these areas with a heat detector if possible, to slow the spread of the fire. Also make sure you and your family have a plan to get out of the house with at least 2 ways out. First sound of the fire alarm especially in the middle of the night and you should leave quickly. Is a heat detector better then nothing, sure is! Just realize the trade off and you will be fine.

Glad it worked out for you.

RobS · Jan 4, 2005

Not to worry Tom, we've got plenty of smoke detectors left and I intend to add one more in the basement due to walls I'm putting up now. The shop area will only have the heat detector but the regular living space will have smoke. Garage will only have heat. It's pretty distant from our normal living space anyway, connected only by the mud room/laundry.

I was pretty impressed with my boys the other day when I set off the alarm. I was down in the basement and wife was out shopping. By the time I got upstairs to let them know what was happening they were already out the front door /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Panache · Jan 4, 2005

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I was pretty impressed with my boys the other day when I set off the alarm. I was down in the basement and wife was out shopping. By the time I got upstairs to let them know what was happening they were already out the front door /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif )</font>
Take them out for pizza, DQ or a round in the batting cage.

Syncro · Jan 4, 2005

Tom- Very true, precious time is lost by not using a smoke detector. We have a monitored alarm system in our house, garage, and also in our detached shop. Since we live in a rural area that extra few minutes gained by detecting smoke until the VFD got here would mean a lot in terms of getting a fire out.

My wife and I were awakened in the middle of the night a few years back by a smoke detector and I was able to find the problem before there was an actual fire. It was a smoldering rag. That incident made a believer out of me.

Volfandt · Jan 4, 2005

I've used a 5" diameter piece of aluminum duct, approx 24" long with std 8' length plastic rain gutter black ribbed tubing connected to it to route exhaust gases out of my shop for yrs without any appreciable notice of fumes lingering around. I screwed a couple of those metal duct straps onto the end to make hooking it to the vehicles/tractors/small engine's exhaust possible. It doesn't fit snug at all but it seems to route the fumes away OK. There has been times when I've had to connect two pieces together which would be around 16' of tubing to route the fumes out. In this case I didn't run the engine very long.

I've tuned engines up, troubleshot them and just ran them during the cold of winter (in the warmth of the ole shop) to circulate the oil, coolant etc., and charge the batteries like this. Sometimes I crank 'em up just to hear 'em /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

My garage/shop is detached so it's not on my homes hard wired smoke detector system but I do have a stand alone out in the shop and it doesn't set it off.

DocHeb · Jan 4, 2005

I think you'll be happy with this setup. Using a typical smoke detector with frequent false alarms will lead to so much frustration it will be disconnected. You have gone above "code" and will be safer for it.

firemarshal · Jan 4, 2005

A garage is far to "hostile" an environment for a smoke detector. Car exhaust and dust from sweeping and the like will create numerous false alarms in addition to those from the tractor. In addition , if the garage is unheated and the temperature gets below 32 degrees F, it is not an appropriate environment for a smoke detector. A heat detector interconnected with the smoke detectors is definately the way to go. Also very important is the separation between the garage and the living areas of the house. Ideally the door between the garage and living area would have the equivelent of a 20 minute fire protection rating and spring hinges to keep it closed. The wall seperating the garage from the living areashould be the equivelent of at least 1/2" gyp board (5/8" fire code better). No unprotected openings between the garage and living areas either. This would provide sufficient protection from a developing fire in the garage to allow safe evacuation when the heat detctor or smokes in the living area do activate.

Having said all that, I don't have that level of protection in my house at the moment but plan to provide it when I renovate that portion of the house. I do have interconnected smokes throughout the living space and carbon monoxide/combustible gas detectors.

I generally start my tractor, give it 15 or 20 seconds of time to get some oil around the engine and slowly roll it outside to warm up. This is to avoid the carbon moxide, stink and deisel fume from effecting me and my wife and small children. I don;'t think I'm harming the tractor in any big way and my family's health and comfort are far more imporatnt to me than the tractor.

I hope I didn't repeat other posts. I couldn't help responding as I am in the fire business so to speak.

keeney · Jan 4, 2005

In most places with modern building codes, I think a 15- minute rated fire barrier assembly is required between all garage spaces and all living spaces. This generally involves a complete wall of 5/8" fire-rated sheet-rock. They also typically require a fire-rated (steel or solid wood) door with self-closing.

Also, no ventilation sharing is allowed between the spaces.

In my house, they also had me put double sheet rock (30 minute rating) on the ceiling of the garage because its a "tuck-under" and there are bedrooms above. I didn't grumble - my kids sleep up there!

I am thinking I might like to add a heat detector to the garage. All that fire barrier is not going to do a lot of good if the first I know about the fire is 15-minutes after it starts when it burns through the floor and instantly the house with hot, toxic gases. Maybe they count on some smoke getting through slowly at first to set off the smoke detectors in the house before any massive burn-through.

- Rick

RobS · Jan 5, 2005

Good to hear from an expert, thanks for the input.

Like you, I only run my tractor for a short while before pulling it out. Always have the garage doors open but that first black puff was usually enough to set off the smoke detector /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif