Here and There

Scott and Jackie's Travels – Thousand Trails Reviews, Campground Reviews, Fulltime RVing, European Travel

Tag: safety

2017 – Project: Replacement Propane Alarm

grscott

About 5:00 AM today we woke up to our propane alarm going off. It seems that propane, carbon monoxide, and smoke detectors are all programmed to die or at least run out of battery somewhere between 2:00 and 5:00 AM – at least that’s been our experience!

Seriously, we change out the batteries on schedule and seldom have that happen. However, the propane detector is wired into the RV batteries so it is generally out of sight and out of mind. That’s my motivation for writing about this now: since the propane detector is wired in it doesn’t start chirping due to batteries dieing it’s easily taken for granted.

Here’s the thing – these vital safety devices have a limited lifespan. Depending on who you ask they are intended to last 3-7 years. Ours was about 10 years old and it still tested okay when we thought to check it or set it off accidentally when cleaning next to it. That is until around 5:00 this morning.

I got up, pulled the ground wire off of it so it would be quiet and closed the propane tank valves just to be safe. Today we headed out to the RV supply store and bought the replacement. They aren’t cheap by any means and if yours is nearing the end of life you might want to shop online and save some money.

In our case, it seemed wise to spend the extra money, support the local supplier, and get the replacement. Swapping the units out took all of 3 minutes. If you haven’t checked your safety devices in a while this might be a good day to do it…and don’t forget the easily forgotten hard-wired propane detection alarm.

Lessons learned: Carbon Monoxide and Smoke Alarms

grscott

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.