by Catherine Lear

Created on: April 14, 2011   Last Updated: April 15, 2011

Smoke alarms are lifesavers for anyone in any home, they can be annoying little blighters at times especially when they go off when you are cooking in the kitchen. Nevertheless, it is at night when all is still and you are asleep in your bed that you could be grateful for being woken from your deep slumber to be faced with a creeping death that otherwise you would know nothing about.

Many people know the benefits of smoke alarms and they have been grateful that they have had them installed, they usually fit on the ceiling of rooms, and they are easy to install and most run from battery power, or if you wish, you can have them installed by an expert and have them connected to the mains electricity.

There are various places to fit them; many homeowners fit them in all rooms in the home.

Kitchen.

Lounge.

Hallway.

Top landing.

Bedrooms.

Bathrooms.

However fitting them in all rooms sometimes can be seen as a waste of time, take the kitchen for instance. The kitchen is the one place that you actually have a fire, you cook in the kitchen, however while you are cooking you are actually in the room and can see for yourself if you have a fire, and it’s in the kitchen that they are likely to go off when you are toasting your bread at breakfast time.

What about the lounge, again the lounge is the one place where you spend most of your time when you relax, reading watching television, and again if a fire breaks out you are awake and able to smell and see it for yourself and make arrangements to tackle it.

The bedrooms though are another matter; a bedroom is the one place in your home that you are the most vulnerable. Moreover, it is in the bedroom that most fatalities in a fire can be found, so it is important that you are woken by an alarm that will tell you that you are in danger from smoke inhalation, and what better place to install a smoke alarm than on the ceiling just above where the door to the room is.

Most fires will start down stairs, and the smoke will creep up the stairs and then under any closed doors, you can if you wish install a smoke alarm on any landing just at the top of the last stair. This will be set off as the smoke rises and will be the first alarm to go off, any light sleeper in the house will be woken by this alarm, however with any door closed any person in a deep sleep might not be woken.

However when you have one installed in the bedroom any person who is a deep sleeper will be woken by the high pitch wail of the alarm and will have time to gather their wits and escape.

All the bedrooms in the home should have a smoke alarm fitted, and each one should be checked each week to see if they are working properly and that if they are the battery type that the battery has not run down for any reason, most will have a small button that you can press for just this test.

Smoke alarms are a serious part of your home safety that should be taken seriously at all times.   

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