Test it Tuesday is not Enough

25 May 2020 at 17:54 // under

Fire and rescue services promote the slogan 'Test it Tuesday' as a way to remind people that they should test their smoke alarms every week¹. While most alarms state on them, and in the documentation, that they should be tested every week, most people don't. As a result of the campaign, I have a weekly recurring task in my todo list to test the alarm. It turns out though that doing a weekly test is not enough.

Several times today, one of our smoke alarms has been getting set off spuriously. Each time I checked and ensured that there was in fact no smoke. Perhaps it was because we had all the windows and doors open. Perhaps it was getting a bit of hayfever. But it was irritating and worrying in equal measure. I looked up the manual and it turns out that as well as doing a weekly test, you are also supposed to clean it every three months with a vacuum cleaner. I had no idea. It has been in place for over seven years now without ever getting vacuumed!

Since getting a clean, it has been running without issue. Looks like I need to add another recurring task to my todo list.

1. It looks like this was setup by an alarm manufacturer, but it has been promoted by many of the fire services as well. ↩

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