Who Knew Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Detectors Expired?
Every device in my home was expired so I had to learn as much as I could about what I was going to replace them with
TL;DR I decided against the Nest Protect and instead went with a First Alert 3120B and 3 Kidde KN-COSM-XTR-B’s.
No matter how big or small the purchase is, I like to research things thoroughly before I purchase them. Thankfully sites like The Wirecutter and The Sweethome exist. They save me a lot of time and in my experience their research is far more extensive than any reasonable person would do and their reviews are spot-on. To my dismay neither of them had reviewed smoke or carbon monoxide (CO) detectors. After spending far too much time researching them both, I figured I’d write a little something up to save others the frustration.
My wife and I had recently been hearing single beeps from our combination smoke and CO detector in the kitchen. I had changed the battery recently so I removed the unit from the ceiling to look for manufacturer info and immediatley noticed the device had an expiration date. I had absolutely no idea that they expired. I became a father a year ago and damnit, I should know these things! I chalked the beeps up to the fact that the device’s expiration date had passed nearly two years ago. I checked all the other devices in the house and sure enough they were all expired as well. It was the perfect excuse to get some shiny new gadgets, which of course meant research.
I knew absolutely nothing about smoke detectors or CO detectors, but I had several questions. First of all, I wanted to understand what fire and safety experts recommended when it came to how many CO detectors I needed and where they should go. In 2010 it became law in California that everyone have CO detectors. Getting a straight answer about how many are needed was pretty confusing and since I didn’t feel like taking a long journey down the rabbit hole of building and safety laws, I turned to my local fire department, which was frustrating at best.
While we are currently guiding residents of ‘single family homes’ in Los Angeles to the City’sDepartment of Building and Safety, and those living in ‘multi-occupant dwellings’ to the City’sHousing Department for such non-Fire Department (“Building Code” not “Fire Code”) issues, things may indeed be different in your community.
As such, and while awaiting a local interpretation for the letter of the law applicable to your community, we encourage every Californian to promptly install, test and maintain *at least* one Carbon Monoxide detector in their residence.
Not. Helpful. Later on in the comments…
If we were to merely offer a suggestion [emphasis added], it would probably be to install, test and maintain a carbon monoxide alarm in every room of your home — but even that may not meet the specifics of what is “locally required” — and that was indeed the question.
Ok, but where should I put them? The Office of The State Fire Marshall had a handy PDF that covered that question among others.
CO devices should be installed outside each sleeping areas of the home including the basement…
…For maximum protection against CO gas, it is recommended that a CO device be installed in each sleeping room.
Finally, I wanted to actually understand the technology used in smoke and CO detectors. I started with wikipedia which did not disappoint. While I generally skip Consumer Reports, they did have a helpful article with quite a bit on the topic. Their recommendations were of course behind a paywall, but I felt knowledgable enough to make an informed purchase decision.
I opened Amazon and searched for Nest Protect and saw mixed reviews, but the one that struck me was from Mark in Portland. He made some compelling arguments against getting the Nest Protect. The lack of an interconnect feature wasn’t a problem for me, but the fact that it only used photoelectric detection and not ionization certainly was a deal breaker. You can get an inexpensive smoke detector that has both detection methods for a lot less money. Sure, they won’t look as good (which typically does matter to me), but they’ll do a better job and when it comes to protecting my family, I’m willing to put function before fashion. The other deal breaker had to do with the fact that, as I discovered, CO detectors do expire and that made spending $130 on one device a little too tough to justify. The real kicker was that Nest left a comment on Mark’s thorough, well-written review and didn’t really address most of his issues. Time to look at the ugly ones.
Based on the fact that almost every combination detector utilized only one smoke detecting technology, but the Kidde KN-COSM-XTR-B had both and had a lot of favorable reviews, I opted for those. For whatever reason, we have one hardwired detector in the master bedroom and since the Kidde didn’t have that model in a hard-wired version, I was ok with just getting the First Alert 3120B.
Bottom line: While I want Internet-connected devices in my home, I’m not convinced that smoke and CO detectors are quite ready yet. Whatever direction you go, make sure you have both smoke and CO detection in your house or apartment.
