Annoying chirp... good cause Published April 23, 2007 By Tyndall Fire and Emergency Services 325th Civil Engineer Squadron TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Picture the following in your mind: It's early evening on a Saturday. You have just settled onto the couch for a couple hours of watching your favorite college football team play in the big game. You have everything you need by your side - beverages, popcorn and the little stuffed team mascot. You kick your feet up onto the ottoman, grab the remote and push the power button and...nothing. You push the power again, still nothing. "Darn remote, the batteries must have died," you grumble. You set down your drink and popcorn, curse the remote again for not working, and walk over to turn on the set. With the big game on, you let the dead remote control batteries fade to the back of your mind. After all, you paid little consequence for them not working. You retire that night with a smile on your face after watching your team leave the field victorious. A little snuggle with the mascot, and you fall right to sleep. Unknown to you, an electrical short starts a small fire in your living room and smoke quickly fills the area. You should be waking now to the sound of loud beeps from your smoke detector mounted in the hall outside of your bedroom, but you are not. Last week when the detector was making annoying little beeps, you took out the battery to make it stop, and just like the remote, it's no longer working. Those annoying little beeps meant that the battery needed to be replaced. You may wake soon to find your bedroom filled with smoke, and you may wake up just in time to get your family out of the house before it's too late - or maybe you will not. It seems you will be paying a bigger consequence for not changing the smoke detector batteries than you did when the remote stopped working. The National Fire Protection Association reports in a 2004 survey that though 96 percent of homes had at least one smoke detector installed, a quarter of them did not work. Surprisingly, homes with non-working smoke detectors greatly outnumber those with none installed. The NFPA also reports that nearly half the deaths from home fires occur in homes without smoke detectors installed, and the biggest reason detectors fail is because of dead or missing batteries. You can take a big step toward ensuring your family's safety from fire by merely testing your smoke detectors regularly and changing the batteries at least twice a year. Smoke detectors will usually chirp intermittently when batteries are running low. Below are smoke detector tips to help keep your family and home safe from fire: · Test your smoke alarms once a month, following the manufacturer's instructions. · Replace the batteries in your smoke alarm twice a year, or as soon as the alarm "chirps" warning that the battery is low. · Never "borrow" a battery from a smoke alarm. Smoke alarms can't warn you of fire if their batteries are missing or have been disconnected. · Don't disable smoke alarms even temporarily. If your smoke alarm is sounding "nuisance alarms," try relocating it farther from kitchens or bathrooms, where cooking fumes and steam can cause the alarm to sound. · Regularly vacuuming or dusting your smoke alarms by following the manufacturer's instructions can keep them working properly. · Smoke alarms don't last forever. Replace yours once every 10 years. If you can't remember how old the alarm is, then it's probably time for a new one. · If you are building a new home or remodeling your existing home, consider installing an automatic home fire sprinkler system.