"Brian Elfert" wrote in message
...
"Mike Marlow" writes:


Don't even waste your money on them Brian. They're a fear factor device
and
serve no real function. Anything that's going to burn in your garage is
going to generate smoke. The smoke detectors will provide all of the
warning you'll ever need. Heat detectors have long been the biggest scam
to
play on the fears of people.

Won't the dust in a shop wreck regular smoke detectors?

I'm prefectly willing to go out and buy a smoke detector that matches the
ones in my house if they will work.

Brian Elfert

I've had mine up for around 10 years and they still work. Mind you - my
"shop" is also an autobody shop at times, paint booth, wood shop, and once
in a while it's actually a garage. I blow everything off with a air hose
from time to time due to the overspray that gets everywhere no matter how I
hang plastic, and so far I haven't had any problems with my detectors. I
was a fire fighter and a paramedic for 12 years so we do test our detectors
once a year, and I know mine work.

I've seen a few things here that I often believed fell into the realm of
urban legend over time. Some of them proved to be true and I was simply
uninformed. Some of the others proved to be genuine urban legend (see the
threads on dust collector explosions...). In this case I can't tell you
that others may not have had problems that they attributed to dust. All I
can tell you is what my environment is and that I have not had a problem.
YMMV. One thing to remember is that your smoke detector need not be located
in your heavy dust areas. Locate it out of the way. It's going to detect
any smoke plenty early enough no matter where you put it in a garage. Think
about where you have them located in your house and how effective they are
at sniffing out smoke.

--

-Mike-