·
Keep electrical appliances and cords in good working order and do not
overload electrical circuits.
·
Keep stoves, fireplaces, chimneys, and barbecue grills grease-free and
make sure they are properly installed away from combustible materials.
·
Keep portable heaters and open flames such as candles away from com-
bustible materials.
·
Do not allow rubbish to accumulate.
c. Develop a family escape plan and practice it with your entire family,
especially small children.
·
Draw a floor plan of your home and find two ways to exit from each room.
There should be one way to get out of each bedroom without opening the
door.
·
Teach children what the smoke alarm signal means, and that they must
be prepared to leave the residence by themselves if necessary. Show
them how to check to see if doors are hot before opening them, how to
stay close to the floor and crawl if necessary, and how to use the alternate
exit if the door is hot and should not be opened.
·
Decide on a meeting place a safe distance from your house and make
sure that all your children understand that they should go and wait for you
if there is a fire.
·
Hold fire drills at least every 6 months to make sure that everyone, even
small children, know what to do to escape safely.
·
Know where to go to call the fire department from outside your residence.
·
Provide emergency equipment such as fire extinguishers and teach your
family to use this equipment properly.
WHAT TO DO IF THERE IS A FIRE
IN YOUR HOME
If you have prepared family escape plans and practiced them with your
family, you have increased their chances of escaping safely. Review the fol-
lowing rules with your children when you have fire drills so everyone will re-
member them in a real fire emergency:
a. Dont panic; stay calm. Your safe escape may depend on thinking clearly
and remembering what you have practiced.
b. Get out of the house following a planned escape route as quickly as pos-
sible. Do not stop to collect anything or to get dressed.
c. Open doors carefully only after feeling to see if they are hot. Do not open
a door if it is hot; use an alternate escape route.
d. Stay close to the floor; smoke and hot gases rise.
e. Cover your nose and mouth with a cloth, wet if possible, and take short,
shallow breaths.
f. Keep doors and windows closed unless you open them to escape.
g. Meet at your prearranged meeting place after leaving the house.
h. Call the Fire Department as soon as possible from outside your house.
Give the address and your name.
i.
Never re-enter a burning building.
Contact your local Fire Department for more information on making your
home safer from fires and about preparing your familys escape plans.
WHAT THIS SMOKE ALARM CAN DO
This alarm is designed to sense smoke entering its sensing chamber. It
does not sense gas, heat or flames.
When properly located, installed, and maintained, this smoke alarm is de-
signed to provide early warning of developing fires at a reasonable cost. This
alarm monitors the air and, when it senses smoke, activates its built-in alarm
horn. It can provide precious time for you and your family to escape from your
residence before a fire spreads. Such an early warning, however, is possible
only if the alarm is located, installed, and maintained as specified in this Users
Manual.
NOTE: This smoke alarm is designed for use within single residential living
units only; that is, it should be used inside a single-family home or one apart-
ment of a multi-family building. In a multi-family building, the alarm may not
provide early warning for residents if it is placed outside of the residential units,
such as on outside porches, in corridors, lobbies, basements, or in other apart-
ments. In multi-family buildings, each residential unit should have alarms to
alert the residents of that unit. Alarms designed to be interconnected should
be interconnected within one family residence only; otherwise, nuisance alarms
will occur when an alarm in another living unit is tested.
IMPORTANT NOTE: WHAT SMOKE
ALARMS CANNOT DO
Smoke alarms will not work without power.
A battery must be con-
nected to the alarm to maintain proper alarm operation if AC power supply is
cut off by an electrical fire, an open fuse or circuit breaker, or for any other
reason. In the event of AC power failure, the battery will supply standby power
for a minimum of 24 hours.
Smoke alarms may not sense fire that starts where smoke cannot
reach the alarms
such as in chimneys, in walls, on roofs, or on the other side
of closed doors. If bedroom doors are usually closed at night, alarms should
be placed in each bedroom as well as in the common hallway between them.
Smoke alarms also may not sense a fire on another level of a resi-
dence or building.
For example, a second-floor alarm may not sense a first-
floor or basement fire. Therefore,
alarms should be placed on every level
of a residence or building.
The horn in your alarm meets or exceeds current audibility requirements of
Underwriters Laboratories. However,
if the alarm is located outside a bed-
room, it may not wake up a sound sleeper,
especially if the bedroom door
is closed or only partly open. If the alarm is located on a different level of the
residence than the bedroom, it is even less likely to wake up people sleeping in
the bedroom. In such cases, the National Fire Protection Association recom-
mends that the alarms be interconnected so that an alarm on any level of the
residence will sound an alarm loud enough to awaken sleepers in closed bed-
rooms. This can be done by installing a fire-detection system, by connecting
alarms together, or by using radio frequency transmitters and receivers.
All types of smoke alarm sensors have limitations. No type of smoke
alarm can sense every kind of fire every time. In general, alarms may
not always warn you about fires caused by violent explosions, escap-
ing gas, improper storage of flammable materials, or arson.
NOTE: This alarm is not designed to replace special-purpose fire detec-
tion and alarm systems necessary to protect persons and property in non-
residential buildings such as warehouses, or other large industrial or commer-
cial buildings. It alone is not a suitable substitute for complete fire-detection
systems designed to protect individuals in hotels and motels, dormitories, hos-
pitals, or other health and supervisory care and retirement homes. Please
refer to NFPA 101,The Life Safety Code, and NFPA 72 for smoke alarm re-
quirements for fire protection in buildings not defined as households.
Installing smoke alarms may make you eligible for lower insurance rates,
but
smoke alarms are not a substitute for insurance
. Home owners and
renters should continue to insure their lives and property.
PLACEMENT OF SMOKE ALARMS
THIS EQUIPMENT SHOULD BE INSTALLED IN ACCORDANCE WITH
THE NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION ASSOCIATIONS STANDARD 72
(National Fire Protection Association, Batterymarch Park, Quincy, MA 02269).
For your information, the National Fire Protection Associations Standard
72, reads as follows:
Smoke detectors shall be installed outside of each separate sleeping area
in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms and on each additional story of the
family living unit including basements and excluding crawl spaces and unfin-
ished attics. In new construction, a smoke detector shall be installed in each
sleeping room.
Where to
Locate the Required Smoke Detectors in Existing Construction
.
The major threat from fire in a family living unit is at night when everyone is
asleep. The principal threat to persons in sleeping areas comes from fires in
the remainder of the unit; therefore, a smoke alarm(s) is best located between
the bedroom areas and the rest of the unit. In units with only one bedroom
area on one floor, the smoke alarms should be located as shown in Figure 1.
In family living units with more than one bedroom area or with bedrooms on
more than one floor, more than one smoke alarm will be needed, as shown in
Figure 2.
In addition to smoke alarms outside of the sleeping areas, NFPA 72 re-
quires the installation of a smoke alarm on each additional story of the family
living unit, including the basement. These installations are shown in Figure 3.
The living area smoke alarms should be installed in the living room or near the
stairway to the upper level, or in both locations. The basement smoke alarm
should be installed in close proximity to the stairway leading to the floor above.
When installed on an open joisted ceiling, the alarm should be placed on the
bottom of the joists. The alarm should be positioned relative to the stairway so
