Why It’s Necessary to Have a Smoke Detector

Many people take for granted the safety afforded them by a smoke detector. Most of the time, they go unnoticed and overlooked, hanging quietly from the ceiling and only gaining attention when their batteries need to be changed. Are they really all that important if we barely ever gain anything from them? The answer is yes – absolutely!

Why are smoke detectors so important to have then, if we rarely use them? Let’s learn a little bit more about why they’re so valuable.

We Use Them Constantly

It seems like a smoke detector is useless all the way up until it isn’t. That’s an unfairly negative way to think about them. That’s exactly the kind of thought process that has us taking them for granted. When a smoke detector is hung up, it is constantly on the lookout for danger. It’s always doing its very best to ensure your safety, even when it’s quiet.

A smoke detector can be a nuisance when you’re trying to cook and leave something in the pan a little too long. Most people have had to wave away smoke from one to stop the piercing scream of its alarm before. But wouldn’t you consider each hassle during breakfast well worth it if you realized one might one day save your life?

Smoke Detectors Save Lives

When thousands of people die each year from house fires, most of them aren’t dying from the injury caused by burns. Most people who die during fires are succumbing to the damage smoke has caused their lungs. The gases and smoke caused by a fire, no matter where in the house it started, are the most deadly parts of it.

Smoke detectors seem overly sensitive when they go off while you’re cooking. The thing is, that same sensitivity is what makes them valuable in a real emergency. When a fire starts while the whole household is sleeping, smoke detectors gain you precious time to get outside. There’s a very real chance you and your family would keep sleeping until the sound of fire is right outside your bedroom door. It might go unnoticed until the heat is within sensing distance. By that time, the chances of you or someone you love not escaping without serious damage rises exponentially.

A smoke detector screaming at you to wake up buys you precious time to get out of the house before the fire has spread beyond control. Remember that burning food on the stove that triggered your smoke detector? Think of how easy it would be to get up and leave the house at that point in a fire. How much further would a fire be able to spread if you hadn’t been warned early on?

It’s the Law

Our country is dedicated to keeping its citizens safe. That means regulations are put in place to ensure everyone’s house is fit with the necessary equipment to keep its occupants safe. Each house has to follow a set of guidelines for where to install smoke detectors. If your own safety wasn’t enough to convince you, following fire safety guidelines as a legality might be. Click here to learn more about Canada’s smoke detector regulations.

Contact us at Engineered Alarm Solutions and we’d love to help you find a solution for your home.