Our 2007 camper has a carbon monoxide and smoke alarm.  The other night (and it always happens at night) one of the alarms started beeping.  I know about the beeping – time to change batteries.  I pulled the battery out of the carbon monoxide detector and went back to sleep.

Today, I put new batteries in it but it continued to beep about every 30 seconds.  I read the information on the back of it and discovered that this is the “end of life beep” – time for a new detector.

I decided that while I was at it I would check out the smoke alarm.  Should have done that on January 1 anyway.  To my surprise it was completely dead in the water.  I’m not sure if the battery died without the smoke detector going off or if the detector itself died.

A quick trip to the store and I returned home with new detectors.  I replaced the two we already had and added an extra smoke alarm to the bedroom.

The new carbon monoxide detector is supposed to last about five years.  I’m going to put new batteries on the calendar to remind me to check them even if they don’t remind me.  There’s also a LP detector in the kitchen.  It’s permanently installed and showing all systems go.  I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if it too won’t need replacing one of these days.