New State Law Requires New or Replacement Smoke Detectors

According to the Johnson City Fire Department's website, a new state law will be going into effect on April 1st that requires new or replacement smoke detectors to be powered by a 10-year, sealed, non-removable battery, or hardwired into the home.

That means all landlords and homeowners in New York State must upgrade the smoke detectors before selling a home or renting an apartment. If you own your own home and you are not trying to sell it, you don't have to worry about the law for now, but you will if and when you decide to put your house on the market.

They created the law because these detectors prevent people from disabling them by taking the battery out of the unit. With the new 10-year smoke detectors, you cannot remove the battery.

The Johnson City Fire Department's website goes on to say that even though the new smoke detectors are more expensive to buy, they really do last for 10 years. And over the course of those 10 years, you will end up saving money because you won't have to keep replacing the battery as you do in current smoke detectors.

Another advantage of the new smoke detector according to the JCFD is that the new smoke detectors are designed to tell differentiate between smoke from burning food and an actual fire. I think every house has had food burn to the point that it set off a smoke detector which is another reason why people would pull the battery from the unit in order to stop the noise. And if they forget to put the batteries back in after the smoked cleared, that could have deadly consequences.

[via Johnson City Fire Department]