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c. Develop a family escape plan and practice it with your
entire family, especially small children.
Draw and post a floor plan of your home and find two ways to exit
from each room. There should be one way to get out of each bed-
room without opening the door.
Teach children what the smoke alarm signal means, and that they
must be prepared to leave the residence by themselves if necessary.
Show them how to check to see if doors are hot before opening them,
how to stay close to the floor and crawl if necessary, and how to use
the alternate exit if the door is hot and should not be opened.
Decide on a meeting place a safe distance from your house
and make sure that all your children understand that they should go
and wait for you if there is a fire.
Hold fire drills at least every 6 months to make sure that
everyone, even small children, know what to do to escape safely.
Know where to go to call the fire department from outside your
residence.
Provide emergency equipment such as fire extinguishers and teach
your family to use this equipment properly.
d. Bedroom doors should be closed while sleeping if a smoke
alarm is installed in the bedroom. They act as a barrier against
heat and smoke.
WHAT TO DO IF THERE IS A FIRE IN YOUR HOME
If you have prepared family escape plans and practiced them with
your family, you have increased their chances of escaping safely.
Review the following rules with your children when you have fire drills
so everyone will remember them in a real fire emergency. If the alarm
should sound:
a. Don't panic; stay calm. Your safe escape may depend on thinking
clearly and remembering what you have practiced.
b. Get out of the house following a planned escape route as quickly
as possible. Do not stop to collect anything or to get dressed.
c. Open doors carefully only after feeling to see if they are hot.
Do not open a door if it is hot; use an alternate escape route.
d. Stay close to the floor; smoke and hot gases rise.
e. Cover your nose and mouth with a cloth, wet if possible, and take
short, shallow breaths.
f. Keep doors and windows closed unless you open them to escape.
g. Meet at your prearranged meeting place after leaving the house.
h. Call the Fire Department as soon as possible from outside your
house. Give the address and your name.
i. Never re-enter a burning building.
Contact your local Fire Department for more information on
making your home safer from fires and about preparing your family's
escape plans.
NOTICE: Current studies have shown smoke alarms
may not awaken all sleeping individuals, and that it
is the responsibility of individuals in the household
that are capable of assisting others to provide
assistance to those who may not be awakened by
the alarm sound, or to those who may be incapable
of safely evacuating the area unassisted.
WHAT THIS SMOKE ALARM CAN DO
This smoke alarm is designed to sense smoke entering its
sensing chamber. It does not sense gas, heat (except for the H or T
options), or flames.
When properly located, installed, and maintained, this smoke
alarm is designed to provide early warning of developing fires at a
reasonable cost. This smoke alarm monitors the air and, when it
senses smoke, activates its built-in alarm horn. It can provide
precious time for you and your family to escape from your residence
before a fire spreads. Such an early warning, however, is possible
only if the smoke alarm is located, installed, and maintained as
specified in this User's Manual.
NOTICE: This smoke alarm is designed for use within single
residential living units only; that is, it should be used inside a
single-family home or one apartment of a multi-family building. In a
multi-family building, the device may not provide early warning for
residents if it is placed outside of the residential units, such as on
outside porches, in corridors, lobbies, basements, or in other apart-
ments. In multi-family buildings, each residential unit should have
smoke alarms to alert the residents of that unit. Smoke alarms
designed to be interconnected should be interconnected within one
family residence only; otherwise, nuisance alarms will occur when a
smoke alarm in another living unit is tested.
NOTICE: WHAT SMOKE ALARMS CANNOT DO
Smoke alarms will not work without power. Battery-
operated smoke alarms will not work without batteries, with dead
batteries, or if the batteries are not installed properly. AC
powered smoke alarms will not work if their AC power supply is cut
off by an electrical fire, an open fuse or circuit breaker, or for any
other reason. If you are concerned about the reliability of either the
batteries or your AC power supply for any of the above reasons, you
should install both battery and AC powered smoke alarms for maxi-
mum safety.
Smoke alarms may not sense fire that starts where smoke
cannot reach the device such as in chimneys, in walls, on roofs, or
on the other side of closed doors. If bedroom doors are usually
closed at night, smoke alarms should be placed in each bedroom as
well as in the common hallway between them.
Smoke alarms also may not sense a fire on another level of
a residence or building. For example, a second-floor device may
not sense a first-floor or basement fire. Therefore, smoke alarms
should be placed on every level of a residence or building.
The horn in your smoke alarm meets or exceeds current audibili-
ty requirements of Underwriters Laboratories. However, if the
smoke alarm is located outside a bedroom, it may not wake up
a sound sleeper, especially if the bedroom door is closed or only
partly open. If the smoke alarm is located on a different level of the
residence than the bedroom, it is even less likely to wake up people
sleeping in the bedroom. In such cases, the National Fire Protection
Association recommends that the smoke alarms be interconnected
so that a device on any level of the residence will sound an alarm
loud enough to awaken sleepers in closed bedrooms. This can be
done by installing a fire-detection system, by connecting smoke
alarms together, or by using radio frequency transmitters and
receivers.
All types of smoke alarm sensors have limitations. No type
of smoke alarm can sense every kind of fire every time. In
general, smoke alarms may not always warn you about fires
caused by carelessness and safety hazards like smoking in
bed, violent explosions, over-loaded electrical circuits, children
playing with matches, escaping gas, improper storage of
flammable materials, or arson.
NOTICE: This smoke alarm is not designed to replace
special-purpose fire detection and smoke alarm systems necessary
to protect persons and property in non-residential buildings such as
warehouses, or other large industrial or commercial buildings. It
alone is not a suitable substitute for complete fire-detection systems
designed to protect individuals in hotels and motels, dormitories,
hospitals, or other health and supervisory care and retirement
homes. Please refer to NFPA 101,The Life Safety Code, and NFPA
72 for smoke alarm requirements for fire protection in buildings not
defined as "households."
Installing smoke alarms may make you eligible for lower insur-
ance rates, but smoke alarms are not a substitute for insurance.
Home owners and renters should continue to insure their lives and
property.
PLACEMENT OF SMOKE ALARMS
THIS EQUIPMENT SHOULD BE INSTALLED IN
ACCORDANCE WITH THE NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION ASSO-
CIATION'S STANDARD 72 (National Fire Protection Association,
Batterymarch Park, Quincy, MA 02269).
For your information, the National Fire Protection Association's
Standard 72, reads as follows:
NFPA 72, 2010 Edition, Chapter 29, Section 29.5.1 Required
Detection, states the following:
29.5.1.1 Where required by other governing laws, codes or
standards for a specific type of occupancy, approved single and
multiple-station smoke alarms shall be installed as follows:
1) In all sleeping rooms and guest rooms
2) Outside of each separate dwelling unit sleeping area, within 6.4m
(21ft) of any door to a sleeping room, the distance measured along a
path of travel
3) On every level of a dwelling unit, including basements
4) On every level of a residential board and care occupancy (small
facility), including basements and excluding crawl spaces and
unfinished attics
5) In the living area(s) of a guest suite
6) In the living area(s) of a residential board and care occupancy
(small facility)
550-0071
Pg. 7-2
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