With your busy schedule, you may find remembering to check and change your smoke alarm a difficult task that often gets overlooked.  If you can tie checking your smoke alarm to an event like turning back your clock in the fall, it’s easier to remember and keeps your family protected and safe in your home.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, residential fire deaths have decreased steadily as the number of homes that have properly working smoke alarms has increased.  Studies from the NFPA show that you’ll have nearly a 50% better chance of surviving a fire in your home if you have the recommended number of smoke alarms in good working condition.

You’ll need to replace your smoke alarm especially if it’s about 10 years old.  Your smoke alarm is just like your electrical appliances and has components that wear out over time.  As your smoke alarm reaches the 10 year mark, it’s failing to detect a fire increases substantially so it’s imperative that you purchase a new model every 10 years.

Knowing how many smoke alarms to have in your home is paramount to the safety that you will have should a fire occur.  Base your number on the number of levels that your home has and the number of bedrooms that it features.  For new homes, the standard requires a smoke alarm in each bedroom, one outside the bedroom area, and one on each level of the home.  The closer the smoke alarm is to the fire source the faster it will work so extra units will provide you with more safety.  Each of your smoke alarms come with a test button and the NFPA recommends that you test your alarms regularly, at least once a month.

It’s also important to change the batteries in your smoke alarm once a year and remember, changing your batteries when you change the time may help you to remember this important task.  If you begin to hear a signal from your smoke alarm constantly this is an indicator that it’s time for the batteries to be changed.  Making sure that your smoke alarm is operating properly may mean the difference between life and death for your family.

You’ll also want to keep your smoke alarm cleaned throughout the year.  They have small access screens around the sensing chamber to keep small bugs and dust particles out but dust can accumulate on the screen and slow air movement through the device.  By vacuuming around the outside of your smoke alarm just once a year, it will work as it was designed to perform.

Doing proper maintenance with the smoke alarms in your home is an important safety feature that you must keep working properly year round.