This last weekend, I got to experience the joy of a fire alarm nearing the end of its life. This is partly my fault, because I should have replaced the thing when I moved in 3 years ago and I didn't.
For those who don't know, here are some fire alarm basics:
In my case, my who-knows-how-old wired-in fire alarm started going off at 4:30 in the morning - making for a very groggy and grumpy me - with random beeps and screeches. The first time, I thought I had been dreaming because it didn't continue and I didn't hear a peep out of it until the next night. Well, the second time I knew it was the alarm, so I got up, checked the house to make sure the thing wasn't reacting to any actual problems, took a look at my CO detector and my downstairs alarm, and eventually started looking up how to shut the thing up. I pulled out the step ladder, checked to see if it had back-up batteries (it didn't), vacuumed it in case dust or bugs were setting it off, took it partway off the ceiling to see if the wires were loose, and ended up calling my mum at 4:30 in the morning. Now I have the breaker switched off, and my battery powered alarm is upstairs outside my bedroom until I can put in a new wired alarm. ...Before anyone yells at me, I knew there wasn't a fire because it was beeping randomly. One steady wail from it and I'd be out of the house. I checked anyway, though. Just in case. Here are a few neat things I've learned about fire detectors: An ionization alarm best detects the fires that make a lot of flame very quickly (flaming fires). These alarms have a constant flow of energy passing between two plates. When the smoke particles enter the chamber, they disrupt the flow of electricity and that sets off the alarm. These are also the alarms that go off all the time when you burn food. Photoelectric alarms are better for fires with less flame and more smoke (smoldering fires). These ones rely on the smoke to interrupt a beam of light. Inside the alarm, a light (visible, infrared, or UV) beam is shone at a sensor, and when the smoke interrupts that beam enough, the alarm goes off. There is a second type of photoelectric detector that is exactly opposite: the beam points away from the sensor, and when the smoke makes the light hit the sensor, the alarm goes off. This is why I tried vacuuming the alarm. Sometimes dust particles or bugs can set these alarms off. For people who have hearing difficulty, there are accessories that use strobe lights and pillow- or bed-shakers to wake the person up. I don't know what devices are out there right now, but I know that a lot of these are triggered by the shriek of the normal detector going off. There's some awesome info out there if you just look for it. Do, because it's worth it.
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AuthorA volunteer. A dancer. A teacher. An observer. Archives
November 2016
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