Will Your Children Wake Up To Your Smoke Alarms?
Certainly by now most Americans have heard of the problem of children not waking up to smoke alarms
, but what have you done about it? Will your smoke detectors wake you? What should you do if you have a home fire?Let me start with the bottom line first. If we are truly going to cure this problem, we must address the entire problem, not just react to small pieces that may make us feel as though we did something, but in reality will not change the results, such as making louder smoke alarms or voice alarms. Neither of those has proven to work and the real answer has been "right under our nose" all along.
Here is an interesting (and tough) question that maybe we should all ask ourselves before we try to answer the other questions about this issue: when my family members lives are at stake, should I be trying to find the easiest and cheapest way to protect them, or should I be trying to find the best and most complete way? Good question. What is your answer?
Wake Up Mom and Dad!
To start with, it makes sense that if our children will not wake to the sound of alarms, we need to be sure the adults know about the fire in time. You would never even think about leaving your burning home without your children, right? So as long as Mom and Dad know about the fire in time, there should be no problems.
How Can You Be Sure You Know About Your Fire In Time?
This can be accomplished by having a complete fire safety system that covers all areas of the home, which will alert you to both smoldering and flaming fires and includes heat detection to cover the areas where you cannot put smoke detectors. This is what is recommended by the NFPA for complete protection and if we follow those recommendations, instead of just the minimum, we have enough time to get to the children and escape the home.
Another important aspect of accomplishing this is to have the best quality alarms, so we are sure they will work every time and react to any type of fire in any room of the home.
Many families feel they can't afford complete fire protection, so the codes have been written to be a minimum and overlook, or at least not directly address quality. (See NFPA 72-07 p177 and Fire Journal Sept/Oct 06 issue, p52). This has resulted in most homes being under protected, while we are thinking we will be OK, since we have a smoke alarm or two as the code suggests. Remember, that is the minimum!
You Cannot Do It Right By Yourself
Another part of knowing about your fire in time is proper installation. I know, really, how hard can it be to install an alarm? Of course the installation is easy, but putting them in the right place for optimum performance takes a professional. There are dozens of factors involved in proper installation, such as knowing which type of alarms go where, avoiding dead air spaces and understanding airflow that can effect whether or not the alarms will work in time.
We Must Also Change Conventional Thinking About Escape Plans
Finally, it makes sense to modify our escape plan. We need to plan to go directly to the childrens rooms to be sure they are awake and then plan our escape from there, which is why, as mentioned earlier, time is so important. I know, we are all taught to get out the fastest way possible. I do not disagree with this thinking. Consider this: if you woke up to a fire in the middle of the night, are you going out your bedroom window without getting the kids first anyway?
Today, the truth is that complete and quality fire protection is affordable, even for the average family. It costs no more than what the average family spends on cable TV for just a few years, no more than your last computer. Over a lifetime, it costs no more than taking your family to a ballgame or to a play once a year! Maybe the real question should not be what does it cost, but instead, what are our priorities?
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