July 13, 2016
Smoke Detector Basics That Everyone Needs to Know
How Important are Smoke Detectors to Dallas Homeowners?
Have you ever wondered why they so important? The answer is pretty simple. Smoke detectors save lives. When smoke detectors are installed and maintained properly, they dramatically reduce fire death and injuries.
The video below shows how smoke detectors work
How Smoke Detectors Work
At their core, smoke alarms are very simple devices that need only two functions: a way of detecting smoke and a way of alerting people to the problem. From new technology involving lasers to old world technology that relies on a lonely individual sitting in a tower on the side of a mountain just waiting to see smoke, all do the same thing in different ways. The two most commonly used smoke alarms (mainly because they are inexpensive) are photoelectric and ionization detector alarms.
The difference between the two lies in how they detect smoke particles. Depending on the conditions of the fire, one type is usually better than the other. Many other kinds of detectors exist that are more expensive and often situation specific (such as needing to protect classified documents or computer servers). These tend to be much more sensitive and allow for many different levels of detection and alarm. The most common of these is aspiration detectors.
Two types of smoke detectors
Ionization Detectors
Ionization detectors have an ionization chamber and a source of ionizing radiation. The source of ionizing radiation is a minute quantity of americium-241 (perhaps 1/5000th of a gram), which is a source of alpha particles (helium nuclei). The ionization chamber consists of two plates separated by about a centimeter. The battery applies a voltage to the plates, charging one plate positive and the other plate negative.
Photoelectric Detectors
In one type of photoelectric device, smoke can block a light beam. In this case, the reduction in light reaching a photocell sets off the alarm. In the most common type of photoelectric unit, however, light is scattered by smoke particles onto a photocell, initiating an alarm. In this type of detector there is a T-shaped chamber with a light-emitting diode (LED) that shoots a beam of light across the horizontal bar of the T. A photocell, positioned at the bottom of the vertical base of the T, generates a current when it is exposed to light. Read more.
Importance of Smoke Detectors
Most people die in there home because of fires without a working smoke alarm. Most of these fire-related deaths occur at night when people are sleeping. The smell of smoke does not awaken most people. The smoke alarm will wake you and allow you to get out safely before the poisonous gases in the smoke overcome you. Test your smoke alarm monthly, Replace batteries once a year, Cleanyour smoke alarm at least twice a year so you can maintain your home smoke detector.