When was the last time you checked your smoke alarm?

[AGXStarseed]

The reason I ask this is because we're getting close to that time of year when Summertime ends, Halloween comes a-knocking (or at least Trick-or-Treaters do) and we turn the clocks back - giving us one sleep-in before messing up our body clocks as the nights draw in.

Around this time when I was younger (don't know if they still do it now as I don't watch TV as much nowadays), there would be adverts from the "Fire Kills" campaign to tell people to check their smoke alarm at the same time when they change their clocks.

Here's two of these adverts which are burned into my memory (pardon the pun):

01. The Melting Clock (Someone took Salvador Dali's work a bit too literally, but I did enjoy watching this happen when I was a kid).

02. On Your Child's Life (This one relies more on emotional manipulation as it preys on a parent's fear of outliving their children).

While I will definitely be checking my Smoke Alarms when I turn the clocks back, I thought it somewhat a good idea to ask when you guys check yours.
After all, I think we can all agree that - with Halloween coming up especially - a house fire is a horror story none of us want to experience.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

At the time changes. Since the smoke detectors are linked, testing one tests them all. But if one goes off it is hard diagnosing things if there is a malfunction, like when a spider got into the sensor of a unit.

 

[Progster]

I don't even have a smoke detector in my house.

 

[oregano]

Smoke detectors sold today in the US are almost all sealed battery. The battery is sealed inside the unit, and the unit tells you when the battery is dead. You then recycle the detector and buy a new one. The thing with changing the battery every six months is that firefighters kept finding people dead from fire who would have lived except they hadn't changed the battery in the detector. With the invention of the lithium battery it was only a matter of time until the sealed smoke detector came about. People would do things like take out the battery when the unit started beeping and not bother to replace it.

 

[AGXStarseed]

I don't even have a smoke detector in my house.

That's pretty concerning. Accidents can happen and as the old saying goes, "never say never".
You saying that reminds me of two other "Fire Kills" adverts - one which is simple but effective:

The second of which genuinely made me panic the first time I saw it as I was cooking something at the time:

 

[AGXStarseed]

Smoke detectors sold today in the US are almost all sealed battery. The battery is sealed inside the unit, and the unit tells you when the battery is dead. You then recycle the detector and buy a new one. The thing with changing the battery every six months is that firefighters kept finding people dead from fire who would have lived except they hadn't changed the battery in the detector. With the invention of the lithium battery it was only a matter of time until the sealed smoke detector came about. People would do things like take out the battery when the unit started beeping and not bother to replace it.

I wasn't aware of that.
My own smoke alarms are mains powered so I don't have to worry about changing the battery.

 

[oregano]

I wasn't aware of that.
My own smoke alarms are mains powered so I don't have to worry about changing the battery.

I think you are in a different country, UK I'm thinking? We have mains powered smoke detectors here in the US too, they are required in all new residential construction (at least in California) and I have them in my current house (built 2005). A lot of people don't trust them (including me) and the law does not require retrofitting unless a renovation goes over a certain threshold, so battery detectors still sell well. I have a battery detector in addition to my mains detector, and so does my mom who lives in the main house.

 

[AGXStarseed]

I think you are in a different country, UK I'm thinking? We have mains powered smoke detectors here in the US too, they are required in all new residential construction (at least in California) and I have them in my current house (built 2005). A lot of people don't trust them (including me) and the law does not require retrofitting unless a renovation goes over a certain threshold, so battery detectors still sell well. I have a battery detector in addition to my mains detector, and so does my mom who lives in the main house.

Why don't people trust them?

 

[oregano]

Why don't people trust them?

The worry is that if a fire were to cut mains power that the alarm would not sound, thus defeating the purpose of the alarm. That was true with earlier alarms, but I don't know about newer ones. I have a newer mains alarm and I think it has a 9v backup battery, which is replaceable. I use a lithium battery in mine. Still, lots of people worry that a power cut would disable the alarm, so they buy sealed battery alarms as backups. In the spring and fall when the time changes the hardware stores have sales on sealed battery smoke alarms.

 

[AGXStarseed]

The worry is that if a fire were to cut mains power that the alarm would not sound, thus defeating the purpose of the alarm. That was true with earlier alarms, but I don't know about newer ones. I have a newer mains alarm and I think it has a 9v backup battery, which is replaceable. I use a lithium battery in mine. Still, lots of people worry that a power cut would disable the alarm, so they buy sealed battery alarms as backups. In the spring and fall when the time changes the hardware stores have sales on sealed battery smoke alarms.

Good plan.

Thinking about this has reminded me of some other Fire Safety adverts that creep me out in one way or another.

Backwards - An advert reminding people to make sure that everyone who lives in their home knows what to do if a fire does break out:

Searching - Probably one of the/the creepiest Fire Safety advert ever made. This one was made in 1974 and it gave me nightmares when I watched it decades later.

 

[AGXStarseed]

Since we're coming up to Christmas time now, I thought I'd show these "festive-themed" Fire Safety adverts.

This first one shows how quickly a fire spreads when the Christmas tree literally goes up in smoke:

This one warns of how fires can easily start around the holiday season:

A grieving mother watches back over the last Christmas she had with her daughter:

 

[Nick12]

I DONT REMBER

 

[AGXStarseed]

I DONT REMBER

Might be an idea to check now then, just in case. To quote a phrase from the Fire Kills campaign, "Push the button - not your luck".