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limited life, and devices that don't work cannot protect you.
b. Follow safety rules and prevent hazardous situations:
Use smoking materials properly; never smoke in bed.
Keep matches and cigarette lighters away from children.
Store flammable materials in proper containers and never use them
near open flames or sparks.
Keep electrical appliances and cords in good working order and do
not overload electrical circuits.
Keep stoves, fireplaces, chimneys, and barbecue grills grease-free
and make sure they are properly installed away from combustible
materials.
Keep portable heaters and open flames such as candles away from
combustible materials.
Do not allow rubbish to accumulate.
Do not leave small children home alone.
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 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 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.
NOTICE: Visual signals are only one method of alerting the
hearing impaired to a fire. The visual signal may not awaken all
hearing impaired individuals. The visual signal must be in the
line of sight of the individual to be seen and effective.
Visual signal should NEVER be relied upon as the
primary fire alert for the hearing impaired under these common
sense conditions:
a. Sleeping face down on the bedding or pillow
b. Use of sleep medications of any kind
c. Use of alcoholic beverages or recreational drugs
d. Use of eye shades
e. If there are tendencies of deep sleep conditions
f. If a fire cuts power to AC circuits, the visual signal will not
operate
g. If person is not within line of sight of visual signal
Under these and other similar common situations an alternate
fire alert method such as a non-hearing impaired attendant is
needed. The visual signal only increases the chance of being
alerted to the presence of fire. No system of this type can fully
protect the hearing impaired in case of fire.
WHAT THIS SMOKE ALARM CAN DO
This smoke alarm is designed to sense smoke entering its sensing
chamber. It does not sense gas, heat, 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 and strobe light. 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 smoke alarm 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
apartments. 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. A battery must be
connected to the smoke alarm to maintain proper device operation if
AC power supply is cut off by an electrical fire, open fuse or circuit
breaker, or for any other reason. In the event of AC power failure, the
battery will supply standby power for a minimum of 24 hours.
WARNING! Visual signal will not operate on battery power alone.
Smoke alarms may not sense fire that starts where smoke
cannot reach the devices 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 smoke alarm
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 and visual signal in your smoke alarm meets or exceeds
current audibility and visual requirements of Underwriters
Laboratories. However, if the smoke alarm is located outside a
bedroom, the visual signal will not be seen or noticed by
occupant and piezo sounder will 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 awaken 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
employing a systematic approach by interconnecting smoke alarms
together, or by using radio frequency transmitters and receivers.
All types of smoke alarm sensors have limitations. No type of
device can sense every kind of fire every time. These types of
fires include:
1) Fires where the victim is intimate with a flaming initiated fire;
for example, when a person's clothes catch on fire while
cooking.
2) Fires where the smoke is prevented from reaching the smoke
alarm due to a closed door or other obstruction.
3) Incendiary fires where the fire grows so rapidly that an
occupant's egress is blocked even with properly located smoke
alarms.
In general, smoke alarms may not always warn you about
fires caused by violent explosions, escaping gas, improper stor-
age 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 warehous-
es, 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
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