August 28, 2025 • 14 mins
When disaster strikes, every second counts... In a fire, you may have less than three minutes to escape. But what gives you that chance to make it out of the house in time? It’s not luck -- it’s a working smoke alarm.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My heartesisode.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Hi, I'm Jackie Limb with iHeart Essay. This week we're
talking about smoke alarms, a small device that could mean
the difference between life and death when disaster strikes. Every
second counts. In a fire, you may have less than
three minutes to escape, But what gives you that chance
to make it out in time. It's not luck, it's
a working smoke alarm. In today's episode, we're looking into
(00:24):
one of the most overlooked life saving tools in your home.
Why so many homes still don't have them or have
ones that don't work? And what can you do today
that could save your life. Tomorrow we'll hear real stories,
expert advice, and practical tips on how to make sure
your smoke alarms are ready before you need them, because
once the fire starts, it's already too late to check
the batteries. Just last month, a Jack Russell named Vivian
(00:47):
became an unexpected hero in Adelaide, alerting her owners to
a fire that destroyed their multi million dollar only park home.
The smoke alarms they never went off. Murray Bridge journalist
Jenny Lenman spoke to Essay Metropolitan Fire Services Phil Evans
about the night in question and what happened to the alarms.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
The snow climb was not what alerted the family, and
that appears to be because the fire started outside the home,
so it was external to the building. They were alerted
by a dog who detected something was wrong. But eventually
that fire had have continued to burn and expand eventually
that would have impacted the internal part of the home,
(01:26):
and that the smoke clams would have been activated.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Do you find ever that people get annoyed by the
beeping and they'd switch them off and that sort of.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
There's many, many, many times I've had people contact me
here or contact the section and say, my snow climb
is beeping every thirty seconds. Well, that's an indication that
the battery is getting low. So that's a feature built
into the smoke clan to alert us when the battery
is getting low in power. We get a beep once
(01:55):
every thirty seconds, and that's an alert. We also get
people ringing same my smoke colarms going off for no reason,
and that does happen. It can be because the smoke
columb is too old. Smoke colarms only have a lifespan
of ten years, so every domestic smoke colarm needs to
be replaced every ten years, and it can be just
(02:19):
the foreign material that's been attracted into the unit. So
we encourage people to vacuum the outside of their smoke
colarm a couple of times a year, once every six months,
draws out any foreign matter that's been attracted in and
that reduces the chance of a false activation. For us,
we just need to ensure we test them every month
(02:41):
by pressing the test button, letting the smoke alarm activation
sound work, and then letting it go at it all.
We sat clean it every six months with that vacuum cleaner.
Just as I said, changing the battery and your smoke
alarm if it has.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Replaceable having some of those on hand so it doesn't
drive your nuts.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, You've got to a bit of time when
that load battery warning activat telling you that's about to
go Placo buy a new one.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Back in April Toomby Bays might a ten burns to
the ground, leaving over a million dollars in damage and
a major gap for local tradees now forced to travel
forty k's just to get the basics. Thankfully, no one
was hurt though, but It's another stark reminder of how
devastating fire can be and why early detection is crucial.
Our reporter Rob McLennan had to chat with store boss
(03:27):
at glen Cearl to find out how the rebuild is going.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Well.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
We've moved to a temporary site just on the edge
of town. The store itself is approximately a third to
a half the capacity that we had previously. We're currently
serving the trade in their field about one hundred percent,
so that's really pleasing. We're offering out services to the
town that require for them to keep their hours and
(03:54):
daily routines going, so it's going really well.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Obviously min ten is a business that's not just popular
but also vital to the Tumbee Bay community. We know
it's a temporary loss, but how's it affecting locals.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Look, they're very very supportive at the moment, and they're
congratulating us and my staff. I've got a wonderful staff
here for the efforts that we've put in, and we've
actually been able to supply the locals pretty much all
they need on their day to day basis.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
What about you, personally, are you able to tell us
how this devastating Internet I guess has affected you.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
My wife and I know it's eighteen years in the
build its business that we've built it up from a
small hardware store to quite a diverse and a large
hardware store. So we basically saw eighteen years of our
hard work disappear in a matter of an hour, and
it was a real shock to us. But the support
(04:54):
that we got from the town is just tremendous. It's
a great community, very supportive. Trying to keep our stress
levels together. We're heading in the right direction to be
able to rebuild and offer up a bigger and better
store than what we had previously.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
On that back on that day on April five, how
did you become aware that the building was on fire?
What happened?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Well, it was a Saturday morning and we normally operate
from nine to all one o'clock and both my wife
and I were working that morning, and funny enough, I
had a brand new employee employed full time first day,
so we did a traditional nine till one shifts, locked up,
went home our properties about ten minutes out of town.
(05:35):
I had lunch and we were coming back into town
to pick up some furniture with a trailer and could
see smoke coming up in the middle of town as
we drove in, and I thought to myself, he's burning
in the middle of town at this time of the day.
And as we turned the corner and drove closer to
the store, we realized that was actually our business just
going up in planes and nothing we could do. We
(05:58):
just sat there and watched it go up and claims
it took hold of the buildings so quickly and just
had no chance other than to try and protect other
dwellings next door.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Looking back on it all, now, are there any potential
lessons that might have come out of it that you
might want to pass on to other business owners in
particularly regional South Australia.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah, I guess the biggest thing for us is to
understand what materials your buildings made up. We knew we
had some asbestos in the building, but due to the
damage that was done, the whole site was basically classified
as contaminated, so our insurance policy to rebuild were no
(06:42):
big enough to cater for the cleanup that's required if
you've got avestice in your building. Knowing now what I
didn't know then is I would have had a lot
larger insurance policy because the cleanup was extraordinarily expensive and
our policy was knowing a big enough to cater for it.
(07:02):
So if you've got a best to see your building
and you know it, or if you don't know it,
get it checked out and make sure that your insurance
is covered.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
We'll have more coming up after the break. I heard essay,
I heard essay. Welcome back if you're just tuning in.
We've been talking about the real life impact of house
and business fires and why working smoke alarms can be
the difference between a close call and a catastrophe, from
(07:30):
heroic pets to million dollar losses. These stories are powerful
reminders that fire safety starts before the flames. Research from
the MFS has found about forty five percent of South
Australian homes who experienced a fire had smoke alarms that
were not working properly. We've also been told standard smoke
alarms are not loud enough to wake up most children
in an emergency situation, with eight in ten kids not
(07:53):
waking up to the sound. I caught up with Peter Smith,
the managing director of a leading smoke alarmed company, Caveat Australia,
about how the take really works and what homeowners need
to do to make sure they're protected.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Two technologies and smoke alarms. The old traditional one which
is now pretty much dying out as an ionizedation, and
that in recent years has been replaced with photoelectric technology. Basically,
how that works as inside a smoke alarm is a
small chamber and inside that chamber is a beam of
light and a receiver. And if smoke or particles of
(08:28):
smoke go through the draft of a home, they'll enter
into this chamber. They'll scatter the light within the chamber
and that will activate or sound the alarm. And this
is the technology that's pretty much used in Australia.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Now, where should these be installed? Then you said, you
know you need the draft of the house and all
of that to get these working. Basically, so where should
they be placed? And are there places in the home
that people kind of forget about? Should you have multiple
in your house?
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Two ways of looking at one of legislation of course,
someone is basically so in any home you should have
smoke larm in every bedroom, all the way top of
the landing, will stairway, and the dining room, lounge areas.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I've also seen a report recently here in South Australia
eight and ten kids don't actually hear the smoke alarm
going off as well when they're asleep, So is there
something that should be changed there?
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Well, Actually a lot of the changes now in smokelane
technology are interconnected with smoke alarms. So the fire occurs
in another room, it connects with all of the smoke
alarms in the home and sets them all off. This
is buying obviously, precious time for everyone to be woken
and get out of the house. Kids will sleep through
the sound of the smoke alarm. Absolutely, it's not reflection
(09:38):
on the actual smoke plant, it's just that it sleeps
through that. So the more warning you get with all
of the alarms activating it at once obviously sets everybody
up and out of the house.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
How quickly can a house fire escalate without early warning?
And obviously there's terrible stories about people not getting out
in time or faulty fire alarms, So how can you
know if your fire alarm's faulty?
Speaker 5 (10:04):
So two questions and then so first one is how
quickly a house go up there into flames? So it
used to be that that was around the twelve to
fifteen minutes but in modern times now that's around the
and a half to three minutes before our house is
fully engulfed due to a number of things. Is one
is the material used in buildings in furniture is a
(10:26):
lot more flammable than it ever was. And there's a
huge increase now where fires are starting in bedrooms rather
than the living rooms, dining rooms, et cetera. Kitchens, They're
starting in bedrooms now. Almost a quarter of all fires
are starting in bedrooms because we have more devices in
our rooms that are charging phones, heating TVs, computers, that
sort of thing. So you can test an alarm by
(10:49):
pushing the test button on it to make sure that
it is one the battery is active and two that
is getting an audible sound.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Basically, we're just putting our faith in the fact that
they the little light as you explained earlier and all
of that, and the chamber is working accurately. So are
there some alarms that are better than others?
Speaker 5 (11:09):
There absolutely so, just like in a thing that the
cheaper you get, the less components, the less support within
the actual smoke alarms. For example, our smoke alarms come
with a dual battery so that you'll get the ten
year battery life actually out of the smoke alarm. Most
smoke alarms will come with just a single battery. Our
smoke alarm is laquered so that it things like humidity
(11:30):
is prevented, which causes nuisance alarms.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Someone told me recently that smoke actually travels up the
walls and so it kind of goes around the ceiling
and then in the sides of the smoke alarm. Is
that how is that how it goes?
Speaker 5 (11:42):
Smoke will travel in the draft that's in the room,
So mostly we'll head to the walls, go up to
the ceiling space, and then go across the ceiling and
then travel Once that room fills up with smoke, it
will then make its way under the door and travel
to the next destination. So if you have a fire
in the in the bedroom, assuming that doors are open
and there's no smoke alarm, and they have to fill
(12:03):
that room to the doorframe, go under the door frame
to travel out into the hallway, all using our precious
time which we we simply don't have in modern house fires.
It can't smell smoke when you're asleep, and if you
only have one smoke alarm at the far end of
the house. By the time you actually hear it or registers,
you're burning into valuable time to get out of the house.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
It's really important to have.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Smoke alarms in every room in your home. In the
states like Queensland, that is actually their legislation now that
you must have smoke alarms in every room in the house,
and they all must be interconnected, and they all must
either be a combination of maine or battery operated smoke alarms.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Essentially, more needs to be done then for our legislation
here in essay. But if someone hasn't checked their alarm
in a while, what's the first thing that you would
want them to do after this episode?
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Okay, so there's a couple of things with smoke larms.
One is that people think that just pushing the test
button and the smoke alarm making a noise is sufficient
to test the alarm. But if it's not, you need
to take the actual alarm itself down, because if you've
been doing that for years and years and years, you
may have an alarm that's really out of date. All
smoke alarms now had a ten year life and must
(13:11):
be replaced after that. But the first thing I would
say is get your smoke alarm down. Check the dates
on the actual labels underneath smoke alarm. If it's all
within date, still vacuum that smoke alarm around the mesh,
and clear out industrial debris that might have started to
settle in the smoke alarm. This causes nuisance alarms.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And that's a common thing. When you know they go
off without anything happening, people get annoyed with them and
disconnect them.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
And that's what we will hear back often as people
will say, well, my alarm was going off for no reason.
We find it's been two years since they gave it
an actual vacuum or a clean Once they go ahead
and give it a vacuum out and put it back
up again, we never hear from them again. But those
who don't contact us will take their alarms down. They'll
think the alarm is faulting and it's not. They'll pop
it in a drawer and it might take them weeks
(13:57):
months or maybe years, or maybe never until they actually
do something about it or replace the alarm. Take them down,
check the date, give them a vacuum, tiss the battery.
If all of that is good and functional, put it
back up. If it's not, then replace the alarm.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
That's it for this week. Don't forget. You can hear
iHeart Essay and the iHeart App or wherever you get
your podcasts. I'm Jackie Limb. Join us again next week
for more of the stories you want to hear. I
Heard Essay, The Voice of South Australia Essay
My heartesisode.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Hi, I'm Jackie Limb with iHeart Essay. This week we're
talking about smoke alarms, a small device that could mean
the difference between life and death when disaster strikes. Every
second counts. In a fire, you may have less than
three minutes to escape, But what gives you that chance
to make it out in time. It's not luck, it's
a working smoke alarm. In today's episode, we're looking into
(00:24):
one of the most overlooked life saving tools in your home.
Why so many homes still don't have them or have
ones that don't work? And what can you do today
that could save your life. Tomorrow we'll hear real stories,
expert advice, and practical tips on how to make sure
your smoke alarms are ready before you need them, because
once the fire starts, it's already too late to check
the batteries. Just last month, a Jack Russell named Vivian
(00:47):
became an unexpected hero in Adelaide, alerting her owners to
a fire that destroyed their multi million dollar only park home.
The smoke alarms they never went off. Murray Bridge journalist
Jenny Lenman spoke to Essay Metropolitan Fire Services Phil Evans
about the night in question and what happened to the alarms.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
The snow climb was not what alerted the family, and
that appears to be because the fire started outside the home,
so it was external to the building. They were alerted
by a dog who detected something was wrong. But eventually
that fire had have continued to burn and expand eventually
that would have impacted the internal part of the home,
(01:26):
and that the smoke clams would have been activated.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Do you find ever that people get annoyed by the
beeping and they'd switch them off and that sort of.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
There's many, many, many times I've had people contact me
here or contact the section and say, my snow climb
is beeping every thirty seconds. Well, that's an indication that
the battery is getting low. So that's a feature built
into the smoke clan to alert us when the battery
is getting low in power. We get a beep once
(01:55):
every thirty seconds, and that's an alert. We also get
people ringing same my smoke colarms going off for no reason,
and that does happen. It can be because the smoke
columb is too old. Smoke colarms only have a lifespan
of ten years, so every domestic smoke colarm needs to
be replaced every ten years, and it can be just
(02:19):
the foreign material that's been attracted into the unit. So
we encourage people to vacuum the outside of their smoke
colarm a couple of times a year, once every six months,
draws out any foreign matter that's been attracted in and
that reduces the chance of a false activation. For us,
we just need to ensure we test them every month
(02:41):
by pressing the test button, letting the smoke alarm activation
sound work, and then letting it go at it all.
We sat clean it every six months with that vacuum cleaner.
Just as I said, changing the battery and your smoke
alarm if it has.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Replaceable having some of those on hand so it doesn't
drive your nuts.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, You've got to a bit of time when
that load battery warning activat telling you that's about to
go Placo buy a new one.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Back in April Toomby Bays might a ten burns to
the ground, leaving over a million dollars in damage and
a major gap for local tradees now forced to travel
forty k's just to get the basics. Thankfully, no one
was hurt though, but It's another stark reminder of how
devastating fire can be and why early detection is crucial.
Our reporter Rob McLennan had to chat with store boss
(03:27):
at glen Cearl to find out how the rebuild is going.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Well.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
We've moved to a temporary site just on the edge
of town. The store itself is approximately a third to
a half the capacity that we had previously. We're currently
serving the trade in their field about one hundred percent,
so that's really pleasing. We're offering out services to the
town that require for them to keep their hours and
(03:54):
daily routines going, so it's going really well.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Obviously min ten is a business that's not just popular
but also vital to the Tumbee Bay community. We know
it's a temporary loss, but how's it affecting locals.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Look, they're very very supportive at the moment, and they're
congratulating us and my staff. I've got a wonderful staff
here for the efforts that we've put in, and we've
actually been able to supply the locals pretty much all
they need on their day to day basis.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
What about you, personally, are you able to tell us
how this devastating Internet I guess has affected you.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
My wife and I know it's eighteen years in the
build its business that we've built it up from a
small hardware store to quite a diverse and a large
hardware store. So we basically saw eighteen years of our
hard work disappear in a matter of an hour, and
it was a real shock to us. But the support
(04:54):
that we got from the town is just tremendous. It's
a great community, very supportive. Trying to keep our stress
levels together. We're heading in the right direction to be
able to rebuild and offer up a bigger and better
store than what we had previously.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
On that back on that day on April five, how
did you become aware that the building was on fire?
What happened?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Well, it was a Saturday morning and we normally operate
from nine to all one o'clock and both my wife
and I were working that morning, and funny enough, I
had a brand new employee employed full time first day,
so we did a traditional nine till one shifts, locked up,
went home our properties about ten minutes out of town.
(05:35):
I had lunch and we were coming back into town
to pick up some furniture with a trailer and could
see smoke coming up in the middle of town as
we drove in, and I thought to myself, he's burning
in the middle of town at this time of the day.
And as we turned the corner and drove closer to
the store, we realized that was actually our business just
going up in planes and nothing we could do. We
(05:58):
just sat there and watched it go up and claims
it took hold of the buildings so quickly and just
had no chance other than to try and protect other
dwellings next door.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Looking back on it all, now, are there any potential
lessons that might have come out of it that you
might want to pass on to other business owners in
particularly regional South Australia.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Yeah, I guess the biggest thing for us is to
understand what materials your buildings made up. We knew we
had some asbestos in the building, but due to the
damage that was done, the whole site was basically classified
as contaminated, so our insurance policy to rebuild were no
(06:42):
big enough to cater for the cleanup that's required if
you've got avestice in your building. Knowing now what I
didn't know then is I would have had a lot
larger insurance policy because the cleanup was extraordinarily expensive and
our policy was knowing a big enough to cater for it.
(07:02):
So if you've got a best to see your building
and you know it, or if you don't know it,
get it checked out and make sure that your insurance
is covered.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
We'll have more coming up after the break. I heard essay,
I heard essay. Welcome back if you're just tuning in.
We've been talking about the real life impact of house
and business fires and why working smoke alarms can be
the difference between a close call and a catastrophe, from
(07:30):
heroic pets to million dollar losses. These stories are powerful
reminders that fire safety starts before the flames. Research from
the MFS has found about forty five percent of South
Australian homes who experienced a fire had smoke alarms that
were not working properly. We've also been told standard smoke
alarms are not loud enough to wake up most children
in an emergency situation, with eight in ten kids not
(07:53):
waking up to the sound. I caught up with Peter Smith,
the managing director of a leading smoke alarmed company, Caveat Australia,
about how the take really works and what homeowners need
to do to make sure they're protected.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Two technologies and smoke alarms. The old traditional one which
is now pretty much dying out as an ionizedation, and
that in recent years has been replaced with photoelectric technology. Basically,
how that works as inside a smoke alarm is a
small chamber and inside that chamber is a beam of
light and a receiver. And if smoke or particles of
(08:28):
smoke go through the draft of a home, they'll enter
into this chamber. They'll scatter the light within the chamber
and that will activate or sound the alarm. And this
is the technology that's pretty much used in Australia.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Now, where should these be installed? Then you said, you
know you need the draft of the house and all
of that to get these working. Basically, so where should
they be placed? And are there places in the home
that people kind of forget about? Should you have multiple
in your house?
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Two ways of looking at one of legislation of course,
someone is basically so in any home you should have
smoke larm in every bedroom, all the way top of
the landing, will stairway, and the dining room, lounge areas.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I've also seen a report recently here in South Australia
eight and ten kids don't actually hear the smoke alarm
going off as well when they're asleep, So is there
something that should be changed there?
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Well, Actually a lot of the changes now in smokelane
technology are interconnected with smoke alarms. So the fire occurs
in another room, it connects with all of the smoke
alarms in the home and sets them all off. This
is buying obviously, precious time for everyone to be woken
and get out of the house. Kids will sleep through
the sound of the smoke alarm. Absolutely, it's not reflection
(09:38):
on the actual smoke plant, it's just that it sleeps
through that. So the more warning you get with all
of the alarms activating it at once obviously sets everybody
up and out of the house.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
How quickly can a house fire escalate without early warning?
And obviously there's terrible stories about people not getting out
in time or faulty fire alarms, So how can you
know if your fire alarm's faulty?
Speaker 5 (10:04):
So two questions and then so first one is how
quickly a house go up there into flames? So it
used to be that that was around the twelve to
fifteen minutes but in modern times now that's around the
and a half to three minutes before our house is
fully engulfed due to a number of things. Is one
is the material used in buildings in furniture is a
(10:26):
lot more flammable than it ever was. And there's a
huge increase now where fires are starting in bedrooms rather
than the living rooms, dining rooms, et cetera. Kitchens, They're
starting in bedrooms now. Almost a quarter of all fires
are starting in bedrooms because we have more devices in
our rooms that are charging phones, heating TVs, computers, that
sort of thing. So you can test an alarm by
(10:49):
pushing the test button on it to make sure that
it is one the battery is active and two that
is getting an audible sound.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Basically, we're just putting our faith in the fact that
they the little light as you explained earlier and all
of that, and the chamber is working accurately. So are
there some alarms that are better than others?
Speaker 5 (11:09):
There absolutely so, just like in a thing that the
cheaper you get, the less components, the less support within
the actual smoke alarms. For example, our smoke alarms come
with a dual battery so that you'll get the ten
year battery life actually out of the smoke alarm. Most
smoke alarms will come with just a single battery. Our
smoke alarm is laquered so that it things like humidity
(11:30):
is prevented, which causes nuisance alarms.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Someone told me recently that smoke actually travels up the
walls and so it kind of goes around the ceiling
and then in the sides of the smoke alarm. Is
that how is that how it goes?
Speaker 5 (11:42):
Smoke will travel in the draft that's in the room,
So mostly we'll head to the walls, go up to
the ceiling space, and then go across the ceiling and
then travel Once that room fills up with smoke, it
will then make its way under the door and travel
to the next destination. So if you have a fire
in the in the bedroom, assuming that doors are open
and there's no smoke alarm, and they have to fill
(12:03):
that room to the doorframe, go under the door frame
to travel out into the hallway, all using our precious
time which we we simply don't have in modern house fires.
It can't smell smoke when you're asleep, and if you
only have one smoke alarm at the far end of
the house. By the time you actually hear it or registers,
you're burning into valuable time to get out of the house.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
It's really important to have.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Smoke alarms in every room in your home. In the
states like Queensland, that is actually their legislation now that
you must have smoke alarms in every room in the house,
and they all must be interconnected, and they all must
either be a combination of maine or battery operated smoke alarms.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Essentially, more needs to be done then for our legislation
here in essay. But if someone hasn't checked their alarm
in a while, what's the first thing that you would
want them to do after this episode?
Speaker 5 (12:49):
Okay, so there's a couple of things with smoke larms.
One is that people think that just pushing the test
button and the smoke alarm making a noise is sufficient
to test the alarm. But if it's not, you need
to take the actual alarm itself down, because if you've
been doing that for years and years and years, you
may have an alarm that's really out of date. All
smoke alarms now had a ten year life and must
(13:11):
be replaced after that. But the first thing I would
say is get your smoke alarm down. Check the dates
on the actual labels underneath smoke alarm. If it's all
within date, still vacuum that smoke alarm around the mesh,
and clear out industrial debris that might have started to
settle in the smoke alarm. This causes nuisance alarms.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And that's a common thing. When you know they go
off without anything happening, people get annoyed with them and
disconnect them.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
And that's what we will hear back often as people
will say, well, my alarm was going off for no reason.
We find it's been two years since they gave it
an actual vacuum or a clean Once they go ahead
and give it a vacuum out and put it back
up again, we never hear from them again. But those
who don't contact us will take their alarms down. They'll
think the alarm is faulting and it's not. They'll pop
it in a drawer and it might take them weeks
(13:57):
months or maybe years, or maybe never until they actually
do something about it or replace the alarm. Take them down,
check the date, give them a vacuum, tiss the battery.
If all of that is good and functional, put it
back up. If it's not, then replace the alarm.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
That's it for this week. Don't forget. You can hear
iHeart Essay and the iHeart App or wherever you get
your podcasts. I'm Jackie Limb. Join us again next week
for more of the stories you want to hear. I
Heard Essay, The Voice of South Australia Essay
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