I just saw a report from NBC news tonight regarding smoke detectors and children. It was kind of disturbing, alarm situations were staged with smoke pouring through the house and the alarms went off for 6 minutes before they were finally turned off. (Someone had to wake the kids to complete the tests) It seems kids sleep so deep that they just don't respond to the sound. I wonder if they would even know what it was when they were awake.

Underwriters Laboratories was contacted and the comment was made that they will have to look into making some changes.

So I was wondering,

Any ideas for changes?
Or, experiences with smoke detectors and kids?
Testing procedures that may involve the end user when a new home is turned over?
Has a contractor ever been found liable for the lack of training the end user received?

Wirewiz

New homes are required to be wired with smoke detectors in all bedroom locations in addition to the original requirements. Were there smoke detectors sounding off in the bedrooms of the sleeping children? 110 volt smokes and system alarms are required to meet certain decibal levels, (load enough to wake someone up if say there was a noisy window air conditioner running).

Spyder,
Decibal levels were not given, and yes smokes were in the same rooms as the kids. I could not imagine them being louder than they are now, I want to run when I test them!
Wirewiz

you can read the story and see the video
http://www.nbc5i.com/news/1779877/detail.html

scary if you have kids. my suggestion is connecting the fire alarm to a refrigerated ice cold squirt gun that sprays the kids in bed. looks like that might be the only thing that wakes them up

Then there's the handicap or mentally challenged institutions where people are deaf. I understand (not installing one myself) that there is something attached to a bed frame that has some type of motor that rattles the frame of the bed. I suppose anything in this serious situation will have expensive R&D, but if it's life safety it's worth it.

[This message has been edited by Wirenuttt (edited 11-19-2002).]

I would agree with Spyder, the only way to protect a house, is to inter-connect the whole lot, if one goes off, the whole lot do.
And run the lot of them off the mains, most people never change the batteries in these, until the "Low Voltage" chirp, starts, by then it is far too late to expect a S/Detector to give a decent Decibel output.
It takes 110dB to wake a sleeping person, a
detector with a low voltage(half discharged
battery), will struggle to make 80dB.
Bear this in mind, you can't smell smoke when you are asleep!.
Smoke detectors do save lives, but only when they are maintained properly.
Would love to see a decent system, that prevents us Firefighters, dragging, burn't,
dead bodies out of House Fires, in the middle of the night!.

The smoke detectors required by Building Regulations here in new homes must also be interconnected.

I do wonder whether many people these days are so used to hearing beeps (on everything from the checkouts at the supermarket to their own microwave oven) that the noise gets lost in the subconscious somewhere.

I can't help feeling that a good old-fashioned (and LOUD!) bell might not be more effective.

I've been to heaps of houses to trace a beep somewhere in the house, it has always been a
flat battery in a smoke alarm,Duh!

How about a set of dry contacts to allow the luminaire in the room of the detector to come on or even strobe. Or instead of a tone from the smoke detector hook up bells. That will rattle their sleep.

How bout when you have a fire starting in a kitchen, a bozo passed out (stoned) on a couch on the the other side of the wall and the smoke detecter going off 8 feet away? BTW, nobody died or was injured