Nobody knows. Or if they do know, they aren’t saying.
A couple of days ago, I got to wondering if my smoke alarms are still good. I don’t know what got me on that line of thought, maybe it was making the campfire pies. Doesn’t matter, once you have the thought, it has to be addressed.
I’m not OCD or superstitious. I’m just regular stitious, and know that if I had doubts about my smoke alarms, and had a fire, I’d be an asshole.
When I was at Costco yesterday, stocking up on processed food, I bought six of these:
I was really good about this sort of thing when I bought my house and when I renovated each room. My smoke detectors are similar to this model, with a 10 year battery. When the battery dies, replace the whole thing. That might have been 15 years ago.
Replacing the entire smoke detector sounds wasteful, but with improvements in technology, updating every 10 years seems prudent.
The solarium was renovated in 2008.
Costco has the fire extinguishers right next to the smoke detectors. With the wood stove, a good fire extinguisher is essential, so thinking that maybe they do expire, I bought one.
When I got home, I checked. Here’s what Bing says:
Yes, fire extinguishers do expire. Here are the key points regarding their lifespan:
- Disposable fire extinguishers typically last 10-12 years and should be replaced after this period.
- The lifespan can vary based on factors like environmental conditions and maintenance quality.
- Regular inspections and checks are essential to ensure the extinguisher remains functional.
- Always check the manufacturing date and pressure gauge to determine if the extinguisher is still effective.
- Proper maintenance and timely replacement are crucial for ensuring safety during emergencies.
I doubt it.
There is no manufacture date or expiration date on my fire extinguisher. Everything gets an expiration date. If it was critical, it would be there. The pressure gauge indicates that it’s still good.
However, I’d still look like an arse if I needed the fire extinguisher and it sputtered like a limp dick.
Now I’ve got an extra, heavy duty, rechargeable fire extinguisher suitable for home or commercial use. I will mount that in the garage. Norm probably has a fire extinguisher in his garage, and he is my guide for doing the right thing.
If you’ve read this far, then you are reminded of your fire safety precautions. You’d be an ass not to check your equipment.
good post – we have a fire extinguisher that I’m sure is many years over 20 years old and I have no idea if it works……of course, no date on it. get a good carbon monoxide detector too, if you don’t have at least one…that’s all I got for now!
These do smoke and carbon monoxide, so I have good coverage now.
The pressure gauge should tell you if your fire extinguisher is good, but to me, it’s worth getting a new one.
Is it bad offering my old fire extinguisher to Keith? I’m sure he doesn’t have one, but giving him my old one is like saying, “I would not trust my house and life to this thing, but it’s probably good for you.”
When I was a maintenance Tech at Alteheim Senior Living , periodically I would go around and turn over each fire extinguisher. Then turn it right side up while still holding with my hands during the entire process. Would turn it over, wait a few seconds, then turn it right side up. If you heard the powder inside shift from like sand from top to bottom then the fire extinguisher was good to go. If not, and there were a couple I found that did not shift, then we would take those ones that did not shift out of the building and replace them with ones that passed the test.
See, that’s what I mean. They never tell you reasonable shit like that.
We also had smoke spray cans. Even though the light is on showing that the smoke alarm has power, does not mean the smoke detector inside the smoke alarm still functions. You could use the spray can by spraying the fake smoke near the smoke alarm to test if it goes off .
On another topic somewhat barely related to this…
There was a guy who lived in Alaska on national park land or something. He was a hermit and park rangers would regularly check up on him. He built his own cabin out of stone. However, the author of the article mentioned he made a slight, but important mistake when he built his stone cabin. He built the fire place with the back of it being part of the outside wall of the cabin. Like you see in typical house around where we live. However, he should have built the fireplace in the center of his cabin- noted the author. Doing so, the back of the fireplace would have radiated heat into the cabin instead of losing the heat of the back of his fire place into the outside. I remember reading he would wake up in the middle of the night to tend the fire. If he built his fire place in the center of the cabin he would have used less fire wood to heat his cabin and would probably not have had to wake up in the middle of the night to put more wood in the fire because the back of his fire place would have radiated the heat into the inside of his cabin.
When I went to Italy to stay with my grand uncle there was a bedroom behind the fire place in the kitchen instead of an outside wall
Richard Proenneke, was the guy who built the cabin in Alaska and lived like a hermit. Correction on the cabin. It was a log cabin. Only the fire place was made of stone.
Having the chimney on the outside wall does lose heat, but our fire places don’t really generate much heat without a wood stove insert.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/mar/15/stranger-in-the-woods-christopher-knight-hermit-maine
The North Pond Hermit
There’s a book about him also.
Stranger in the Woods
By Michael L. Finkel
This story is unreal
I’d like to hear you write a blog about it
If I could find the audio book version, I’d check it out.