Smoke Alarm Scare

Okay, on a more serious post, it's more like a FYI: 

At 3:30 yesterday morning the smoke alarm goes off with 2 serious beeps, mind you its not the change my battery kind of annoying chirps. Clark and I bound from our bed at the same exact time, zip downstairs at record speed to start the inspection process despite not smelling smoke or seeing fire. We live in a centennial home that was built in 1910; the old gal sometimes gets cranky and sometimes just has a sick sense of humor nevertheless, still somewhat panicking, we race through the house feeling for hot spots in the walls checking room after room again and again and again. We even checked outside, walking around the outside to see if we saw any sign of smoke or fire. Past experience has taught us fire is nothing to mess with and to be extra cautious.... 19 years ago Nov 3rd we lost a house to fire. Thankfully no one was home at the time. The real fear of the danger and the sadness of losing everything never leaves. Tonight, thankfully, we find no smoke or fire but upon close inspection of the culprit alarm I see a recommended replacement date of 10 years. I'm happy to report the detector lived a long life of 10 years, 1 month and 13 days.

who knew?

I will certainly be visiting the local store to buy replacements for all the old alarms. It is a widely seen campaign by the fire departments recommending changing the batteries during daylight savings time which is coming up Nov 4th. I think it is also a good practice to inspect the unit along with taking time to clean the dust off and out with a good shot of compressed air and replace those outdated alarms if need be. I had no idea that there was a life span on a smoke alarm, I doubt many do.  To take extra precaution we held a family meeting to go over fire safety and evacuation routes to refresh and hopefully improved any holes we may found in our plan.

To healthy, happy, and safe living! Cheers!