It’s time to ‘spring forward’ which also means its time to replace the batteries in your smoke detectors AND CO monitors.

You do have carbon monoxide monitors, right? State law says that you must have carbon monoxide monitors on all living floors of your home. It isn’t required (but should be) in unfinished basements which is probably where your furnace, hot water heater and dryer are located.

If you don’t have CO monitors yet get some – today. You can save effort (and money) by

They talk – to each other and to you!

purchasing combination smoke/CO monitors. I have ones that communicate with each other wirelessly, so if there’s smoke on the first floor, alarms on upper levels go off simultaneously telling me the problem, where it is, and to get the heck out of the house.

One final note – when auditing homes I frequently see smoke detectors well past their prime. Usually if you pop open the unit (as when replacing batteries) you will see a stamp or sticker with the manufacturing date of your unit. If your smoke detector is more than ten years old get a new one – that is the age they frequently fail.