tom wrote:


For a family/home owner to take the initiative to install smoke
alarms, test and clean; isn't a 30-50% predicted failure rate high
enough motivate that same home owner to replace them?

http://www.chopurl.com?621



I have multible smoke alarms in my house, the problem I've seen is
when a smoke alarm is working 100%, by the time they sound(based on
serverity of fire and distance between the smoke source and alarm,
etc, etc), the house is getting filled with smoke. I've seen tests
where by the time the occupents started down the stairs, there were no
stairs visible.

Now factor in I have areas in my house where number of smoke
dectectors is 1. If that fails, the delay time is now greater,
proving for a more differcult egress. I have a small house, and yet I
have 7 smoke detectors, if the first floor fails and the hall, 2/7
still less than 30% possible failure rate prediction for a 10 year
old smoke detector, my house is cooking before my bedroom ones go off.
Possibly isolating myself and wifey from our child accross the hall.

So, 7 x 10 bucks every 10 years is the cheapest insurance I've ever
paid. Even if I replaced them yearly, $70 bucks still about 5 bucks,
the cost of one less grande mocha per month.

Before we get into further beating of this dead horse, too late,
options are great, eveyone has one, and few ever match up.

Good luck.

tom


Gees, 7 detectors in a small house? must really be
paranoid. What to you do or have in your house
that you fear fire so much? You miss the whole
point, the 10 year replacement idea is a fraud.
You seem to have missed all the important points
of the NFPA. First, you aren't likely to have a
fire and second, if you have a smoke detector and
it is hooked to an operating battery, you are not
likely to have a fire death. Time to quit this
argument. You should transfer your worries to
more common causes of death and injury.