Mom to Mom – Smoke Detectors

Today, on Mom to Mom, we’re going to talk about the fire alarms in your house. We all have them in our homes, but we don’t really pay that much attention to them until we actually need them. So, I had my good friend here, Todd, who is a firefighter, to tell us about the smoke detectors and how many we actually need in our house because I know at one point, I only had one and we need way more than that, right?

Yes. So, depending on when your house was built, the fire code at that time would say how many, if your house was built today in 2023, you would’ve one in every bedroom, one outside of every bedroom, one on every level change. So, if you have a three-bedroom house all on the second floor, you would have five in your house, three in the bedrooms, one outside, and then one on the first floor. So, it all kind of depends. If the bedrooms are spread apart, then you may have a couple in the hallways, depending on how big the house is and those kinds of things. But we recommend sleeping with the bedroom door closed. A lot of people think, well, I don’t need one in my bedroom. I can hear the one in the hallway. The way houses are built today and the things that burn in the house today burn so much more toxic and hotter, they get hotter faster. We recommend having that barrier between you and the smoke if it’s not in your room. So having one in every bedroom is ideal.

And how many seconds? I remember you telling me it takes like, what, less than 30 seconds.

So 40 years ago you had 17 minutes to get out of your house. Once the first alarm went off, and these aren’t my numbers, these are from the UL Laboratories. But nowadays because of everything burns so much more toxic, you have less than two because everything burns that much. Fight faster.

Well, make sure that you have lots of smoke alarms in your house. If you have any questions, I can answer them or Todd can answer them up on our Facebook page and we’ll see you on the next mile to mom. Thanks, Todd.

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• Mandy Williamson