1. Carbon monoxide and smoke detector are very important for your family's safety and survival. This is something you can't afford to not buy and use because it saves lives and without it, there is no way of detecting fire or presence of carbon monoxide in your house or condo.
2. Most house insurance company would not compensate for your loss in case of house fire or carbon monoxide poisoning of your family members, if they learned that there were no smoke alarm or carbon monoxide detector installed and functional in your house. It is just as important to replace batteries annually for your smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector if it runs on batteries. You can have the wired smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector installed if you prefer it that way.
3. The general rule of thumb to replace the entire smoke alarm unit or carbon monoxide detector is to count 10 years from the date, you first installed the batteries into it and starts using it. Another tip is to always check for your batteries level whenever it is time to turn back your clock for Day light saving time before the winter starts in Canada.
4. As to the number of smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector, at a minimum there must be one of each present and installed in each level of your house, including your basement. When installing in the basement, the smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector should be installed about 10 feet away from the furnace, water heater, or any source of fire, carbon monoxide, so that the alarm are not triggered too often. You don't want too many false alarm and then one real alarm comes, you would be ignoring it thinking it is false alarm again.
5. When installing in the upper rooms and corridors, the best placement would be outside the rooms but located somewhere close to the staircase. This will allow the smoke or carbon monoxide to reach the alarm first and have you alerted before it reaches your room. The staircase would act as a chimney, channeling the smoke or carbon monoxide towards the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
6. Although experts recommend installing one smoke alarm, carbon monoxide in each sleeping room or living room, that would be not very necessary if you just have at least one in each level. It also depends on the size of your house and rooms. If your sleeping rooms and other rooms are far away from where you installed the detector in the corridor staircase area, then in this case you will need additional smoke alarm in each rooms. It is understandable to have at least one detector in the area where heat source, and gas source are located in your house.
7. To install the smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector, it involves a few easy steps. You will need 9v batteries or AA batteries depending on the type of detector you bought. Remember once you installed the batteries, you start counting 10 years before the unit has to be replaced.
Remove the back batteries cover and you will see two screw holes on it. Use that two screws holes as marking on the wall or ceiling and drill holes according to the distance of the two holes. Remember to first make the required holes without installing battery first. Otherwise when battery is installed and the back cover is closed, there is no accurate way to install the correct screw holes. This was where I made a mistake earlier and I had to redo the two screw holes frustratingly.
Once the batteries are installed and the unit placed onto the screws back cover, you can press and hold on the "Test" button on the front face of the detector and listen for beep noise. After that you are all set and protected with fire and carbon monoxide detector.
