12v Smoke Alarms For The Home

12v smoke alarms for the home could save your life. Here's how to make sure yours is working well.

It's important that your smoke alarm can be heard from each room of the house. It is no point saying "Tony will wake Uncle Junior up if there's a fire".

What if Tony's "out of town" for the night? Nobody will wake Uncle Junior up. Goodbye Uncle Junior!

But in all seriousness, it is essential that 12v smoke alarms for the home be heard from each room. This means every single room of the house, not just bedrooms.

What if young AJ is having a sleepover in the basement? You can't plan ahead where people will sleep – but you can plan to have a 12 smoke alarm for the home in each room. Some systems allow you to connect as many as 12 units to the base unit for house-wide smoke detection.

Where To Install 12v Smoke Alarms For The Home

Preferably not near the stove or cooktop is the short answer! You don't want false alarms every time you make a hot pot!

Wall Mounted Smoke Alarms

Wall-mounted 12v smoke alarms should be installed about 5 – 10 inches (13 – 25 cm) from the ceiling.

Ceiling Mounted Smoke Alarms

Ceiling-mounted 12v smoke alarms are obviously connected to the ceiling.

Basements

12 v smoke alarms in basements should not be installed at the top of the basement staircase, as there is a "dead zone" of air that could prevent smoke from reaching the detector.

Battery-powered smoke alarms for the home can be installed fairly easily with a screwdriver, drill and ladder.

When To Replace 12v Smoke Alarms For The Home

Every ten years is the short answer! If you think about it, a smoke alarm is not just "doing nothing", waiting until some smoke comes along so it can let off its alarm.

Quite the opposite. In actual fact, the smoke alarm is one of the hardest-working devices in the home. This is because every second of every day, it is monitoring the air quality for any signs of smoke.

The fact that a 12v smoke alarm hardly ever makes a sound is because you are lucky enough not to have any fires, not because the smoke alarm is doing nothing. In summary, the smoke detection components will wear out, and have a much greater chance of failing after ten years of service.

Smoke Alarm Chirping – What Does This Mean?

If you own a Lifesaver smoke alarm (or any other brand for that matter) and it chirps every ten seconds or every minute, you need to replace the battery.

Please do not just pull the battery out to stop the chirping. You need to actually replace the battery with a new one in order for your 12v smoke alarm to actually work.