Now that smoke alarms are so common, many fires take place in homes that have them because the batteries are dead.

I recently went to a seminar on smoke alarms. One of the nice investments is to have alarms that have 10 year batteries.

You don't have to climb to replace the batteries so they are safer that way for elderly and when the battery runs out 10 years from now, you throw them and get a new one. While they cost more initially, most of them save you substantial money over paying for the batteries over 10 years.

Besides replacing batteries yearly, think about actually replacing smoke detectors every 5-10 years. We've lived here almost 19 yr and last Christmas (of course middle of the night and with infant g-boys here!) the hardwired/battery back-up detectors all over the house (7 total)were going off. We replaced batteries on all and of course the next night the same thing happened (never in the daylight--go figure). I finally called our electrician and he asked if we had the same ones he installed 19 yrs ago and then laughed when I said yes. He says he replaces the ones in his house every 5 yrs. That they are not made to last forever and dust can make them nonfunctioning. So $85 later and lots of ladder time for DH we had all new detectors. Feel much safer--we live in country & rely on volunteer FD.