See the full video below!
Have you ever wondered how to protect your home and people in case of a fire but the options for smoke detectors were overwhelming? I bought a house and noticed the smoke detectors needed replacing. After doing some online shopping, I decided to go to the store and it might be easier. Nope. There were just too many kinds and sizes and I didn’t know what features I needed or could do without.
Friends told me I should ask the fire department what to buy, and I thought that was a great idea. I thought since I would be asking, I’d make a video to share what I learned.
Bruce Armstrong, a Battalion Chief and Safety Trainer at the Benton Fire Department was happy to help by recommending what to look for when buying smoke detectors and where to place them. We also talked about the types of smoke detection and carbon monoxide detectors too.
I learned a lot, including what “incomplete combustion” means, but let’s don’t downplay my favorite part. He let me practice using the fire extinguisher! Thanks to the Benton Fire Department for helping out so I could make a video for everyone. The fun part is at about 17 minutes.
Here’s the auto-generated closed-captioning, which is probably not great in places, but will help you to find the right spot in the video:
0:18 – for each and every month okay first month mark it on your calendar sometimes you can get little
0:25 – stickers to put on there the first month check to see if it’s working in the way you do that is about simply pushing this
0:32 – button holding it down okay nothing happened so and a lot of smoke detector sorry about that a lot of smoke
0:43 – detectors actually have a flashing line so when this thing is in operation you’ll periodically give you a red light
0:49 – display just to let you know let you know that’s working now when you push that button it doesn’t work typically
0:56 – that’s when you definitely have to change the battery pack another safety feature that is going to the smoke
1:02 – detectors is a low battery level with low battery alert so when you better get slow it will start chirping about once
1:10 – every 30 seconds the setting is usually when I occurs it’s about 3:00 a.m. on any given morning yeah so when you
1:18 – really don’t want it yeah and then you call the fire department know how to shut it off so basically take out the
1:23 – battery where you knock it off the long and yet go by nothing exactly know that that is you actually had a truck there
1:30 – this this specific brand of smoke detector actually because it’s new out of the box will it will sharp like that
1:38 – for a little bit until everything kind of stabilizes but for the most part test it once a month
1:44 – hold it holding in the button here making sure it beeps sometimes if you hold the button in the batteries week
1:50 – you’ll give you a really dull achy sounding okay you know it won’t be that sharp crisp oh gosh you know high
1:58 – decibel sound I like see see they’re getting in from them um important things for you to know and for those that are
2:06 – watching is where do we put these things I mean where I need right because I’ve seen places on the wall where they used
2:13 – to be and there’s one in the hallway that I’ve found and I’m sure there was one in the
2:18 – kitchen but I can’t find where that was and I saw a place where I think there’s one in the living room okay
2:24 – the basic rule is any sleeping area now some people may have places that people sleep because they have a small house an
2:34 – extended family may be in the living room that would be a good place tire goes again but like every bedroom and in
2:43 – the hallway outside of the sleeping area for example when you sleep I get personal but when you sleep you sleep
2:51 – with your door open or closed and I usually sleep with it open although I’ve been told to close it okay I just feel
2:59 – closed in when the doors closed but I’ve been told this closet because then it’ll you know obviously not stop the fire but
3:06 – make it yeah it would slow it down quite a bit and that’s that that is the purpose for
3:11 – having a smoke detector in the room and in the hallway because if you do sleep with your door closed if there was a
3:17 – fire and either in the bedroom or in the hallway that smoke detector would be isolated if it was on one side the other
3:24 – that’s why you have one on either side of that door and closing door is a great idea because if a fire does develop it
3:30 – does keep that heat and smoke or retains it or keeps it out of your room or in the room if you don’t wear your ass got
3:37 – jacked longer okay now I’ve heard that or I read on the packages when I was shopping that there one of them said it
3:44 – detects two different types of smoke and I thought well what the heck are those is that just marketing or they’re really
3:52 – two kinds of smoke uh there’s two types of detectors there’s one is called a photo electric which basically if you
3:59 – can imagine a flashlight being being shot against a mirror okay and and the beam is is being projected back so you
4:08 – get a steady level of projected line well what happened to our smoke particles come between the light and a
4:15 – sensor and when these enough smoke particles come in and break that beam then you have you have a detection or
4:23 – and then alert goes okay the other one is what’s called a photo that’s the photo one the only– is an
4:31 – ionization type of detector where you have the prodigal the particles of smoke that form ions and there’s I can’t
4:39 – really explain those coming a chemical reaction that occurs Sam because that it reaction occurs that sets off alarm as
4:48 – well okay the other question I had is the carbon monoxide carbon dioxide detection
4:57 – yes detector yeah a lot of people suggested that I look into that too okay and I see some that our smoke and carbon
5:06 – monoxide and then somebody said no I want my carbon monoxide monitor down lower okay that’s a very good question
5:13 – you have gas fuel appliances natural gas lots of water heater from a water here and for myself about your central
5:24 – heating air and no okay well anytime you have natural gas skilled appliances you do want to you do want to have and
5:32 – really need to have a carbon dioxide detector because when natural gas burns if it burns clean seeing a nice oblique
5:40 – flame that’s putting off water vapor which you can’t see and thoughts open enough carbon dioxide like when we
5:48 – breathe out okay that’s okay it’s a nice blue flame it’s getting lots of oxygen in with the natural gas when it burns I
5:56 – have a blue flame if you’ve ever seen a stove that burns and has a yellowish flame my old flame that means it’s not
6:04 – it’s it’s what’s called incomplete combustion it means there’s a lack of oxygen there and what’s happening in us
6:11 – when we get to orange flame then you don’t get the complete burning you get other byproducts including carbon
6:17 – monoxide the same thing that comes out your tailpipe on your automobile okay no you do not one night in your house you
6:25 – know thus the detector will let you know if there is a buildup of carbon dioxide if
6:31 – there’s a problem with your your water heater the ventilation okay your situating an air of the ventilation if
6:38 – the pipes is rusty if it gets bent it if it gets as bringing the fresh air in did I get
6:44 – enough of a circulation you’re in kitty okay but is that going to be down lower and then your regular breathing air or
6:54 – up higher in other words if I’m going to decide between a two and one detector or two different ones
7:01 – I wonder what’s going to be best for me well that’s a very good question the interesting thing about carbon
7:08 – monoxide is that usually it’s like any draft in your home any circulation when warm air arrives with carbon dioxide can
7:19 – be carried up like when you’ve got your heater on you know get carried up you know towards the ceiling but when it
7:26 – cools down they can drop so it can be anywhere in that in that air column okay so you see the kind that you can plug
7:34 – into the wall a lot of times the plugins are down low that’s a sometimes carbon dioxide detectors are battery-operated
7:41 – you can put it maybe on coffee refrigerator someplace up high so just anywhere in the home but you don’t want
7:48 – to have it where you have an exhaust vent you don’t want to put it in a place where the draft is going to be just
7:56 – pushing the air all around you want kind of a quiet still place that stuff will sell out gotcha
8:02 – all right the other thing is you really don’t want coming a combination tv/vcr yeah if one right yeah the other one so
8:12 – we would recommend that you would buy what the VTR couple DVD player TV you know it’s that combination if once you
8:20 – malfunction or break then you know your guys going about it the other one so we would recommend that you guys stand
8:26 – alone smoke detector standalone carbon dioxide detectors okay and you point only need one carbon dioxide detector in
8:34 – your home now and let’s talk about where I’m supposed to put this in the kitchen okay and you have to the nearest Oh or
8:45 – away from it or what now what are we talking about about not covering up the smoke detector
8:52 – you really don’t want this smoke detector in your kitchen not in not in the kitchen at all I would
8:58 – not put in their stove okay because I knew when I was growing up when supper was ready because somebody would spill
9:04 – something like burner and this thing would go off it wasn’t a fire a lot of false alarm
9:11 – he’s going off fry put it near the kitchen but not in the kitchen okay yeah if you have a dining room or something
9:17 – maybe you’ve got a cutout door section there put it on the opposite side away from the kitchen so if there is a
9:24 – buildup of smoke it could get to the top of that door and then flow up around that back toward the ceiling and would
9:32 – set this off but only after you’ve got us a sufficient amount of smoke that’s something going okay yeah okay I’m an
9:41 – expert cook so that’ll never happen to me then but just thought I’d ask I have a question for you okay you have
9:50 – a laundry room or laundry area yes and actually I call it my European kitchen because the washer and dryer are in the
9:58 – kitchen okay and you know it’s just a big kitchen and it has stuff on this side and stuff on that side so so yes it
10:06 – has a gas dryer so I guess you know the smoke detector would still need to be kind of close to there yes so I just
10:17 – need to sort it even it out between the stove and the dryer I would probably push it closer towards
10:24 – your dryer because you you know if you’re getting smoke off your dryer yeah I mean I didn’t know about what you
10:31 – didn’t expect okay so maybe I’ll just spend about the dryer yeah where I buy the dryer that would be
10:35 – far enough away from the stove concur good idea and good question okay but the last thing I wanted to know is that some
10:44 – people said that you can buy detectors that are connected to services like like you have alarms for your home right and
10:54 – it calls if somebody breaks in and this is the same and then they if you’re not home and you don’t know it’s on fire or
11:00 – you’re asleep since somebody calls right and is that I don’t asked certainly didn’t see that in the store but I
11:07 – sounded like that was not option for some company right there are in that I can
11:13 – there are spiritually companies out there that will come in and do to evaluate your home I don’t want to
11:19 – recommend pain I don’t want recommend anyone over another because you know another one has the same right
11:25 – satisfactory yeah people don’t always get satisfaction even at a third the company’s some people right oh yeah a
11:35 – lot of times it’s just neighbors or whatever but you know these type of detectors are made for when you’re there
11:42 – to alert the occupants that there is smoke and if there’s smoke there starting to get out what you’ve just
11:48 – described with is a system that will notify the monitoring company which will then call our communications which will
11:57 – then dispatch us so you know it’s there 24/7 but you gotta be willing to pay for the installation right and the monthly
12:04 – service fee that goes along with the monitoring can’t you go for it it’s how they’re recommended and so and let’s
12:11 – just be clear for people watching that something you buy from another company non from the fire department the fire
12:17 – department does not do that service we do not monitor it in there when you receive a call and then we respond but
12:23 – we do not do the monitoring either it is something you have to pay for okay well um this is been really helpful to me
12:30 – personally and so that’s why I thought somebody else is going to need answers to these questions or maybe they don’t
12:36 – have their things but in the right place I already have things and they don’t know you know they just bought it and
12:41 – stuck it somewhere and so so I’m glad that we answered all those questions about a fire extinguisher can we can
12:49 – when you play with one yeah we need to go in the parking lot or we can actually take this one this one is actually out
12:55 – of date we can actually take this one out the parking lot okay and you can show me how to use it
13:01 – yes okay got it okay okay we will make sure that we’re upwind or not yeah well make sure we do that
13:11 – [Music] all right ceiling important thing about fire extinguisher is to know what type
13:22 – of fire extinguisher will fight okay actually you’re going to be fighting the what type of what type of fires now um a
13:30 – lot of fire extinguishers are red this one actually happened is citywide okay and if you look on here you see the
13:36 – little pictures here yep it was over gasoline what does look like a plug-in like again seen this is B okay
13:46 – for gasoline flammable liquids okay this is C for electrical okay now we’re this is just demonstrating how
13:54 – to use a fire extinguisher there would be another another picture here it would be a picture of a flaming
14:00 – trash can okay you know trash can here we have a trash can I mean it’s not going to flame no no what we’re going to
14:08 – do is it would actually have a picture of a trash can and that would say Class A is wood paper ordinary compostable
14:17 – things like that so you would actually have an a B and a C and it would be called an ABC or an all-purpose or
14:24 – general parker sparks thing okay now the important thing is to check it has a gauge okay I see it’s in the green area
14:33 – on fall little arrow points okay that’s what we want we want make sure that every time we check this that’s in the
14:39 – green alright the other thing is there’s a safety pin on here okay M all right it keeps us from discharging this alright
14:46 – so if our pin is missing this could be bad it’s not like a grenade necessarily I have to actually push the button after
14:53 – that well you know like the grenade you know you pull that but then you have to let go
14:58 – right yeah well this time you push down so instead of letting go you purse down okay
15:03 – exactly so it actually has some very very small directions here that neither one of us can read I have my glasses on
15:09 – me and they’re not helping on hold on typically on your extinguisher in much bigger writing it will tell you how far
15:14 – that you need to stand back actually it’s in this big routing here okay good okay so there is an acronym
15:21 – her name is and that’s like a tarot deck oh no yes so much shorter okay an acronym is a set of letters it’s bellow
15:30 – words and help you a mnemonic to help you remember what today so the way to operate this product English sure is
15:37 – passed yes this no no no man I don’t mean pass I mean passed that means that we are
15:43 – supposed to pull the pin okay aim aim squeeze three sweet pasa so oh hey
15:56 – then squeeze and sweetly but you can’t squeeze before you pull because it’s hard to get this right
16:04 – and you need to aim because you don’t want to point this that’s the camera okay so let me ask you should I wait
16:10 – until there’s a fire to read all these instructions no that would not be good for you if I don’t have my glasses I
16:17 – need to know already how to use this before the fire happens to bite I need to like check it and figure out how to
16:23 – make it work well yes but don’t discharge this because once you discharge once you squeeze off any of
16:29 – this this one is not refillable okay now if you spent twenty bucks on this and you decide you just want to play with
16:36 – this and then you squeeze it off well then it may it may empty so much of the contents out that or even the propellant
16:44 – the gas in here then it may not work okay so really it’s for a one time year this one’s for one time okay but there
16:51 – are others that are refillable rechargeable okay now what’s interesting is there are also pictures in
16:57 – description and it’s also on this one is in Spanish – yeah so it’ll tell you how to use this we just described it again
17:06 – cool stand back it says 60 and aim at the base okay sixth think so here I’ll let you hold that I’m not going to pull
17:14 – it yet okay okay which way is the wind blowing chilly come on towards you and towards
17:23 – my heart okay okay come back to your room an ellipse will hit our camera get over here and refocus don’t don’t get
17:32 – down so you’re six feet to the fire you’re dressed in is flaming so we’re going to go and actually we’re not gonna
17:40 – panic alright so not gonna panic hold it like – you know what girl front here swinging
17:48 – bounce it like that okay no don’t squeeze down okay now pull your PIN – I would hold that in your finger hey I aim
17:56 – it aim at tight squeeze all right it’s out okay now I gotta get your car but look it’s out now but what happens you
18:15 – got flames back ups did you turn your back on the fire I’m gonna get good answer always be ready to apply second
18:25 – half a 15-8 things don’t just please as you see on there you’ve gotten down okay halfway yeah
18:32 – now if you just squeeze all that off and it cleared up whoops you throw the barge things ready now no don’t do that so
18:41 – what you want you go ahead and look like so we’re gonna sleep somewhere it’s on fire again yeah okay I’m trying to
18:48 – figure out how to hook this yeah yes it’s like this it’s like you go point you’re making again you’re asking saying
18:53 – yes support the nozzle okay look down the barrel and it’s you das hooker I think you know there was
19:05 – there was only a little bit of fog there yeah we didn’t know that this was gonna change on then change all right all
19:14 – right so that’s how you to park there’s photographer okay now that’s the important thing is to know if you’re
19:23 – going to use this especially in an outdoor application which way the winds blowing
19:26 – yeah so then if it’s a fire in your house you’re not going to think about the wind and that should be a factor
19:33 – yeah okay okay thank you so much it looks like I had glitter or something in there that is sparkly that I guess that
19:41 – helps to put it out or it makes you look better I don’t know like Megan you can like fancy after you know your fire the
19:47 – thing is if you don’t have one of these you have a if you have a fire on the stove or something like that you can use
19:55 – baking soda that spit on it which can be real careful you know if it’s a cooking fire your stove turn off the burner it
20:03 – can safely remove the skillet and if you have some baking powders that you can pour on there that could help it Aurra
20:10 – Hey put that lid on top don’t care that hot pan of grants around the house right you the outside yeah that’s a bad idea –
20:16 – okay all right all right thank you so much you’re very well with me how to do this and for making me
20:23 – glitter selfie ready yeah and pretty good and thank you to Linda the photographer so good all right we’re
20:33 – dead all right now you know make me clean the parking lot
20:36 – our name you –