Fire Alarm Installation

As a home or business owner in Baltimore or Annapolis, Maryland, one of the smartest things you can do for yourself is install a fire alarm. Fire alarms provide an almost instantaneous alert if a fire starts in your building, letting everyone know about the danger and helping them get to safety as quickly as possible. If you want to install a fire alarm in Baltimore or Annapolis, call Colonial Electric today!

Types of Fire Alarms

If you want to install a fire alarm system in your home or building, it’s important that you first figure out specifically which type of fire alarm system to install. Fire alarms can be broken down into two main categories – smoke detectors and heat detectors.

Smoke Detectors

Smoke detectors raise an alarm when they sense smoke particles in the air. They are extremely sensitive, as anyone who’s ever had this type of fire alarm installed in their kitchen knows! If you’re going to install smoke detectors, you should install them in every bedroom and on every level in your home.
There are two main types of smoke detectors, and while the distinction between the two isn’t huge it helps to know the difference anyway.
Photoelectric smoke detectors – this type of smoke detector uses a small beam of light that shines into a detection chamber. When smoke enters the chamber, the smoke scatters the light beam and sets off the alarm. This type of smoke detector works best against smoky fires.
Ionization smoke detectors – this type of fire alarm reacts to ions created by flames during a fire. It is most useful for flaming fires. For best results, install a combination of ionization and photoelectric smoke detectors in your home or building.

Heat Detectors

Heat detecting fire alarms send an alert when they sense the heat from a fire. As a result, you should not install heat detecting fire alarms as your primary fire alarms. Instead, these should go in the kitchen or the attic, where steam and dust would cause normal smoke detectors to false alarm frequently.

Fire Alarm Safety Tips

• When you install fire alarms, install them in every bedroom, outside every separate sleeping area and on every level in your home, including the attic and basement (remember to use a heat detector in the attic).
• Interconnect all the smoke alarms in the house, so that when one goes off, they all go off.
• Test your alarms monthly by pressing the TEST button.
• If your fire alarms run on batteries instead of being hooked into your home’s main electrical system, replace those batteries annually. If your fire alarm starts chirping, that means it needs new batteries.
• Replace all of your smoke alarms every 10 years.
• If you or anyone in your family is deaf or hard of hearing, install smoke alarms with strobe lights or vibration devices to warn them too.

If you want to install a smoke alarm or install a fire alarm in Baltimore or Annapolis, Maryland, call Colonial Electric today!