Written by Eada Hudes

Mishaps can happen anywhere and anytime. It can happen even when we are moderately cautious. Accidents come unannounced and catch us off-guard. We are humans. It is not impossible for us to make mistakes. However, the key is to be prepared for these unforeseen events. We are all absolutely frightened of fire. The harm and rampage it can cause is not unknown to us. Seeing an entire house getting salvaged by accidental fire is something that we would like to see only in movies.

However, these events occur in real life too. You will be surprised to know how many people become homeless and even lose their lives due to house fire every year. You can take every step to make sure this sort of nightmare never happens to you. But nothing can ensure 100% precaution other than installing smoke detectors by commercial electrical contractors. Oakley Electrical Contractors Ltd. is a well-established and modern thinking electrical contractor. They guarantee to carry out all the electrical installation with same integrity, irrespective of the scale of project.Tips for maintaining the smoke alarm:

As the saying goes, it is always better to be safe than sorry. If you really want to protect your lovely home from fire, you should install smoke detectors immediately. These devices detect smoke faster than humans and save your house from fire. However, your work doesn’t end after the smoke alarm installation. You need to make sure that your detector is working properly. For that, proper maintenance of the detector is absolutely crucial. Here are a few tips to maintain the smoke alarm at your home:

⦁ Testing: You would not want a dead smoke alarm on the ceiling just pretending to protect your house. For this, it is absolutely necessary to test the smoke alarm once every month. This would make sure that the alarm is working properly. Also, problems like dead batteries can be easily detected. For testing, you just need to hold the test button down till you hear a blaring alarm. This would ensure that the smoke alarm is in a perfectly good condition. You might have to press the button more than once to stop the alarm.

⦁ Vacuuming: The tiny holes on your smoke detector can be the pathway for dust and small spiders for getting inside.  The dust particles can build up inside the detector and even the spiders can spin webs that can prevent the smoke alarm from working properly. Thus, vacuuming the smoke alarm every six months is absolutely crucial to get rid of the dust particles and other hindrances. This small practice can also help in keeping allergies at bay.

⦁ Spraying Insect Repellent: Smoke alarm is the perfect place for various insects to form their nest, as it remains undisturbed for most of the time. To prevent this, it is crucial to spray insect repellent on your smoke alarm every week. This would prevent the insects from getting inside the alarm and building up a nest.

⦁ Battery replacement: You must not forget about replacing the battery of the smoke alarm to make sure that it is working properly. In most of the models, the battery might need to be replaced after a year’s time. Also, for majority of the alarms, when the battery starts to run out, it starts emitting a low beeping noise after every few minutes to alert the user. However, not all the smoke alarms come with replaceable batteries. So it is always better to take professional help in such situations.

These are the few tips of maintaining the smoke alarm at your house. You should not forget that installing a smoke alarm is important, but what is more important is maintaining it.