PRINCETON, WV (WOAY) – Fire departments are encouraging people to check their smoke detector batteries.
In recent years, many Americans have grown tired of the age old tradition of Daylight Savings Time, claiming that there’s no point to the time change. And despite a growing want to end Daylight Savings for good, fire departments everywhere use this time to remind people to check their smoke detectors.
Brandon Meadows, a firefighter with the Princeton Fire Department says it serves as a simple reminder to keep your home safe from potential fires.
“Instead of just trying to remember a random day throughout the year to check the batteries in smoke detectors, we use Daylight Savings Time. Just because you’re already changing the time on the clocks, so it’s easier if you just do them both together,” Meadows said.
Newer smoke detectors last much longer and don’t need their batteries replaced nearly as often. But many homeowners and landlords haven’t updated their smoke detectors to these newer models, so it’s still important to check the batteries.
“They actually have smoke detectors now with batteries that will last up to 10 years. Normally the Red Cross will give us some and that’s what we give up. They require less, it’s safer. You pretty much just set it and forget it.”
Because smoke detectors lay untouched for most of their life spans, they might pick up dust particles and lose some of their functionality after a few years. So even if you do have a newer smoke detector, firefighters still recommend you check up on them every now and then.
“Normally they only have about a 10 year life span. The sensor in them that reads and detects smoke, it gets dust and stuff like that on it. It’ll quit working the way it’s supposed to.”
Even if you’re positive that your alarms are working fine, fire departments urge you to err on the side of caution, and just test them out every now and then. More than one-third of home fire deaths occur in homes in which no working smoke alarms are present.
