Mark wrote:
"Robert Green" wrote in message
...
I was at an elderly friend's house the other day when the smoke alarm
went
off. It was quite loud and I reacted instantly to the noise. My
friend, a
former Army marksman in his 70's, who's suffering from profound high
frequency hearing loss, heard nothing!!!
Then I started looking around for alarms that used lower frequency
sounders
but the only thing I could find were specially converted smoke detectors
that cost $300!!!!
I'm wondering why COTS alarms operate at such a high sound frequency,
especially when it's well known that older adults lose their high
frequency
hearing first. I have been thinking of just unsoldering the Sonalert
sounders in low priced alarms and replacing them with lower frequency
sounders, but that could compromise the detector's ability to sense
smoke if
the replacement sounder has sufficiently different electrical
characteristics.
Does anyone know of a *reasonably* priced smoke detector whose sounder is
audible to people with high frequency hearing loss? I'd like to buy a
couple of such detectors for him, but the price on the only unit I've
found
would bring the bill to over $1200 for four detectors, and that's just
unreasonable. I know what goes into making a smoke detector and 10x the
cost of the parts still wouldn't bring the price that high.
The idea that smokes use sounders that can't be heard by a lot of elderly
people seems pretty unreasonable to me as well.
Surely someone out there makes a smoke detector or combo smoke/CO
detector
(even better) that makes a sound people with typical hearing loss
could hear
a little better.
BTW, we can skip flashing light smoke detectors. BT, DT, GTS! He's got a
phone ringer/flasher that he never hears or sees. The unit's flasher
can't
really be seen in daytime easily and the electronic ringer again uses
a tone
in the 5000Hz and above range and is inaudible to him. FWIW, based on
some
simple tests I did with CoolEdit, a PC program that allows you to
create any
audible tone, he can hear most stuff below 4000Hz. Yes he has a
hearing aid
but no, he does not sleep with it in.
Thanks in advance for your help.
--
Bobby G.
Our local tv station did a story a few years ago about small children
not waking to the loud hi-pitched alarms. They even did a test and
showed several small kids sleeping right thru an alarm right in their
rooms. They showed one that actually had a recorded voice of the
child's mom yelling for them to get up and get out of the house and kids
seemed to hear and respond to that. Here's a story on 'talking smoke
detectors':
http://www.doityourself.com/stry/ara_talkingsmokealar
You can get more with a Google on 'talking smoke detectors'.
If you have hardwired 120VAC "tandem" smokes (the kind where if one goes
off they all make noise) as are required in new houses, you can get one
with relay contacts and the relay will follow the sounder (that is, the
contacts will change state when any of the detectors is in alarm, not
just the one with the contacts) then you can do any kind of homebrew
sounder you want. Also there are versions available with 177cd strobe
lights, these are usually used in ADA hotel rooms and sleeping areas of
apartments for the hard of hearing. Gentex is probably the best known
mfgr of these.
If someone is hard of hearing and has a house with hardwired 120VAC
smokes, I would highly recommend looking into replacing the smokes with
the ones with ADA strobes. Off the top of my head I think the current
Gentex model is 7309, but there's different versions with and without
relay contacts and for wall and ceiling mount. Not cheap, but if you've
already demonstrated that the existing detectors aren't notifying the
occupant...
nate
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