While I don’t think this is either mundane or pointless I know this is the right forum.
I am an insurance agent in NY state. Early yesterday morning, one of our clients lost their 4 children in a fire because there were no working smoke detectors in the house.
Here is the heartbreaking link.
Please check your smoke detectors and replace the batteries every time you reset your clocks (April and October). And please say a prayer to the Deity of your choice for these poor kids.
Just as I opened this thread five minutes ago, all the smoke alarms in our place sounded!
It seems Mrs. Duckster was making toast and didn’t notice the lever was at carbon black. Neither of us smelled smoke when all of a sudden the hall smoke alarm went off. A milli-second later all the alarms in the entire house wrent off. The arlarms were all installed prior to us moving in here and it appears they are all sensitive to each other’s alarms. When one goes off, the others chime in. Each are stand-alone, battery-operated unints and not wired to each other.
Five bloody loud alarms all going off at once!
Now, I hope I don’t sleep through them when I really need them.
And please be aware of your children (if you have any) when the smoke detector goes off - a report from the local NBC affiliate showed that in their tests, the children tested didn’t wake up at all to smoke detectors: http://www.nbc5.com/news/1788444/detail.html
Apparently children sleep very deeply and sleep right through many alarms. The report also notes that Underwriter Laboratories (a local firm) will look into the situation and see what might be required.
I forgot to add this - watch the video at the site for the chilling sight of children sleeping through even 5 minutes of an alarm, only waking when their parents shake them awake. Working smoke detectors are still important - maybe your children can hear them, and you would, so you can move to be sure that your children get out.