Monitored Smoke Detectors Help Save Home
Press Release 9/15/2010
The boy lit the candle upstairs in his room. He carefully blew out the match and placed it down beside the candle to cool off, just like his mom had shown him. He always helped Mom light candles downstairs, but this one was special. It smelled good. He wanted his room to smell good, like apple pie.
His parents were downstairs finishing up dinner and watching the evening news. They knew the kids were either outside playing or watching T.V. It was the normal nightly ritual. Suddenly they were interrupted by the security voice siren saying "Fire. Fire. Leave the Premises Immediately."
There was no fire, so Mom went to the security keypad and turned off the voice siren.
The phone rang. Mom answered it.
“This is Atronic Alarms and we are dispatching the fire department,” said the voice on the other end. “There is a smoke alarm that is going off inside your home.”
The woman told the caller it was a mistake and there was no fire. "I've canceled it at the keypad," she said. The security monitoring dispatcher then told her which room the alerted smoke detector was in. It was upstairs.
This is based on an actual *event which took place with an Atronic Alarms' **client. Located in Lenexa, Kansas, Nell Mathews, general manager of the locally owned and operated security, fire and home automation company, said that most of their clients who have monitored security also have fire protection.
“Extensive damage was prevented for these people by the quick response from our central monitoring station. Their additional smoke detectors installed by us for monitoring purposes may have even prevented a tragedy,” says Mathews.
Mathews also says that monitoring for fire does not increase your monthly monitoring costs.
“With Atronic Alarms the monthly investment for monitoring security does not increase with additional monitoring for fire or with other environmental sensors, like water bugs and hi/low temperature sensors,” Mathews says.
Todd Harrison, operation’s manager at Atronic Alarms, says that installing smoke alarms provides a wise investment and enhances the life and safety feature of the system.
“It increases the safety value for your home, your loved ones and your pets,” says Harrison. “When a fire device is breached, the fire department is immediately dispatched. As in this case, the seconds between the time smoke is detected to the time someone is notified could make all the difference."
The National Fire Protection Association says that more than half of reported home fires had smoke detectors but the batteries were missing or dead.
"Hard-wired smoke detectors installed by Atronic Alarms do not have batteries," Harrison says. "The "battery backup" is contained in the alarm panel itself, thereby reducing maintenance so you don't have to worry about changing batteries two times a year. Our wireless smoke detectors have lithium batteries that can last up to 5yrs. What is nice about our systems is when any battery gets low, it notifies the client at the keypad and a signal is received by the central monitoring station. A follow-up call is then made to the client."
"However," Harrison added, "The Fire Protection Agency recommends that all smoke detectors be replaced every 10 years, no matter what kind you have."
