Timeline for Why should we replace smoke alarms every 10 years?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 1, 2017 at 19:37 | comment | added | mckenzm | Dirty sensors and depleted isotopes work too well. The sensitivity increases. Frequent false alarms are as good as no alarms at all. They could be built to expire like printer toner cartridges, or warn if a 6 month test has not been performed.....It's only a matter of time before they are all networked and self order their own replacement too. | |
| Oct 31, 2017 at 20:03 | comment | added | PlasmaHH | One of the more common radioactive elements used in smoke detectors is Americium 241.It has a halflife of roughly 432 years, so even after 10 years it is active enough to work well in a detector. The reason for 10 years is really loss of sensitivity and an average mtbf of a lot of the parts being not that much higher. | |
| Oct 31, 2017 at 17:43 | history | edited | Niall C.♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Add other answer as supplemental
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| Oct 31, 2017 at 17:41 | comment | added | Niall C.♦ | Hi! You have a couple of unregistered accounts. Please register one of them, then merge them together, which will allow you to edit and comment on any of your posts. Thanks, and welcome to the site! | |
| Oct 31, 2017 at 15:44 | comment | added | Auspex | While the accepted answer properly addresses the life of the hardware itself (MTBF: "Mean Time Before Failure" figures in here), your "Environmental conditions" is also important. They just get dirty! And dirty sensors can't work properly. | |
| Oct 31, 2017 at 15:16 | review | First posts | |||
| Oct 31, 2017 at 16:21 | |||||
| Oct 31, 2017 at 15:15 | history | answered | Mike | CC BY-SA 3.0 |