If your home is equipped only with battery-operated smoke detectors, you may be putting your family at risk. Batteries die, their power fades or becomes intermittent; they are not to be relied upon for so critical a job as alerting your loved ones to the danger of a house fire.
The better alternative is a system of smoke alarms that are wired together and powered by your home’s electrical system. Here’s why you should have this kind of “hardwired” system in place, no matter what kind of house you live in.
They’re Connected to Each Other
When smoke alarms are connected to your home’s electrical system, they are also all connected to each other. If one sounds an alarm, they all sound the alarm. This way, if your daughter is playing in her bedroom and you’re in the basement doing the laundry when a fire starts in the kitchen, she’ll hear the alarm, and you’ll hear it, too. You can make a hasty dash upstairs to scoop up your child and follow the fire plan you’ve outlined with your family.
More Reliable Power with Backup
Your home’s electrical system is more reliable than a bunch of 9-volt batteries, one in each smoke detector, so the chances of any detector not working are greatly reduced. But each hardwired detector also has a battery backup, so they will work even if there’s a power failure or a problem with just one circuit. It’s always wise to have two ways of running a life saving device. And if you have a home generator to power the home during power failures, you’ll still have two power sources on each detector.
We urge you to keep your family and your home as safe as possible with a system of hardwired smoke detectors. If you’re in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, or Maryland please contact us.