This needs very little intro.....could make the difference between life and death!

...submitted from a childhood friend who now lives in Georgia.....

Since you’re in the insurance business, I thought I would share this with you.

My house is equipped with an inter-connected smoke alarm system. Most houses built within the last 20 years are. One unit is hard wired and the other unit is hard wired with a battery back up. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. They essentially work in tandem. I change the batteries when ever we have a time change so I rarely even hear the warning “battery low” chirp. Out of curiosity, I decided to physically test them via the test button. The one directly hard wired without the battery worked fine and it set off the other one in tandem like it is supposed to do. Well, when I tested the one that is hard wired with the battery back up….nothing. No beeping, not a peep. I held the test button for a couple of minutes and it wouldn’t alarm. Who knows how long this has been going on? The green LED was lit so I assumed all was well with my smoke alarm world. After further investigating, all the green LED does is indicates that the unit is getting power. The Marv in me came out and I started investing and I was stunned to find out that one is supposed to periodically clean/dust them. Who knew? Well, I killed the circuit breaker and dismounted the unit, blew it off with a can of air and gently vacuumed it with a computer vac and now it’s working like new again. Even though the other unit was working, I cleaned that one as well, just for my own peace of mind. I don’t recommend that everyone blow compressed air and vacuum their smoke detectors, by all means one should follow their owners manual recommendations. My point is; there is more to smoke detector maintenance then popping a fresh battery every six months…And, green does not always mean everything is A-O-K. We are programmed to think that from the time we are old enough to conceive thought but it doesn’t hold true in the smoke detector world. The owner’s manual recommends that you test them (chirp them) once a week…Who knew? I was just strolling by them and thinking…Green light…cool…all set …Not!