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Home / New Zealand

Missing batteries open the door to a silent killer

By Catherine Masters
Property Journalist·
22 Mar, 2001 09:58 AM4 mins to read

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BY CATHERINE MASTERS

If you are one of the majority of householders the Fire Service says have heeded the warnings and bought smoke alarms, you deserve a pat on the back.

But turn that into a kick in the pants if you are also one of the "many" householders who have taken
out the batteries or not bothered to replace flat ones.

"A smoke alarm with a dead battery or no battery is useless," says Jim Dance, national fire safety co-ordinator.

Statistics from Auckland University's Injury Prevention Research Centre show that between 1993 and 1997 161 people throughout New Zealand died in fires.

Between 1993 and 1998, more than 1500 people ended up in hospital overnight as a result of fires.

A follow-up survey to a trial in which more than 5000 smoke alarms were installed in the Eastern Bay of Plenty from 1997 to 1999 found that 72 per cent of participating households had at least one functioning smoke alarm up to 30 months after installation.

Missing or flat batteries were the main reasons for non-functioning alarms.

Researcher and public health physician Dr Mavis Duncanson said that at least seven households from a sample of 437 reported that an alarm had warned them of a potentially serious fire.

In two cases a neighbour heard the alarm and called emergency services.

"We know that many fatal incidents occur in exactly that situation, where someone is asleep and is overcome by smoke before they are even aware there is a fire."

Dr Duncanson said it was not enough to have an alarm in the house. The device had to be maintained.

The Eastern Bay of Plenty study did not investigate the reasons people removed the batteries, but interviewers gained the impression that it was because cooking triggered the alarms or because the devices beeped when the batteries were getting flat.

"They'd take the battery out thinking, 'I must get another battery.'

"Of course, they never actually got around to it," she said.

There are two main types of alarms apart from those wired into the electrical system or burglar alarms.



Ionisation alarms respond more quickly to small smoke particles. The other main type is the photoelectric alarm, which uses a beam of light and a light sensor.

If an alarm frequently goes off when you are cooking the Fire Service recommends replacing it with an alarm that has a button enabling you to silence it for a few minutes.

Or you could move the alarm further away from the kitchen.

If the problem detector is an ionisation one, then you could replace it with a photoelectric device. Its detector is less sensitive to smaller particles, so it is less affected by cooking smoke.

Smoke alarms detect smoke before it can be seen or smelled. The smoke particles break a circuit in the smoke detector, which triggers a loud warning signal and keeps sounding until the smoke clears.

As smoke rises it moves along the ceiling and will move up stairwells and vertical openings.

When it cannot rise any more it will build up, working its way down again, so it is important to put the detectors on the ceiling to get the earliest warning.

They need to be tested regularly.

Dust and spider webs can trigger the alarms, and they should be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner once a month.

Test them once a month by pushing the test button in.

Change the battery once a year - perhaps on New Year's Day or, as the Fire Service recommends, on the day when daylight saving ends.

When the battery is going flat, the alarm will sound short, repetitive beeps.

Alarms should be replaced after 10 years. By then they will have gone through more than 3.5 million monitoring cycles.

Mr Dance says smoke alarms should be installed in every bedroom, hall and living area.

"Fires start quietly and grow quickly. You can't smell smoke when you are asleep and can't detect a fire. A smoke alarm sounding could be your first warning there is a fire."

Prices vary. An ionisation model sold at Mitre 10, for example, usually sells for about $12. The store also stocks a photoelectric model for about $45.

* Contact your local fire station or the Fire Service's website for sensible tips on smoke alarms and fire prevention.

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