In last week’s blog about fall maintenance tips for your home, one of the tips that we suggested was to check your carbon monoxide (CO) detectors. Because CO detectors are so important to the safety of your home, we wanted to provide you with some more details on how you can best keep yours working the right way. So today we’re going to go over how to properly maintain your carbon monoxide detectors and tell you about the advanced models that we offer at Jerry Kelly Heating & Air Conditioning!
Important carbon monoxide detector maintenance tasks
- Check and/or change the batteries. If the batteries die in your carbon monoxide detector, they won’t be able to alert you if CO gas is building up in your home. That’s why the first step in carbon monoxide detector maintenance is typically to check the battery life of your units and swap out old batteries with a fresh pair.
- Test the detectors. Your detectors have a test button on them that you can hold to verify that they are working properly. It’s a good idea to do this about once a month because it only takes a few seconds to do and it will familiarize you and your family with the sound of the alarm.
- Replace old detectors. Carbon monoxide detectors don’t last forever. You’ll want to consult the manufacturer of your model to find out how long it is designed to work properly, but detectors typically last around five years. If your detectors are older than that, you should consider replacing them with new units (see below).
Ask Jerry Kelly Heating & Air Conditioning about low-level carbon monoxide detectors
Jerry Kelly Heating & Air Conditioning is proud to offer low-level carbon monoxide detectors that provide superior protection for our customers. Unlike standard CO detectors, which are only designed to detect high levels of carbon monoxide, the units that we install can detect carbon monoxide at much lower levels.
There are a couple of different benefits to this. First, they can detect carbon monoxide as it builds up instead of only alerting you when CO levels are already dangerously high. In addition, long-term exposure to low levels of carbon monoxide can make you ill, so low-level detectors can make you aware of problems that you’d be unaware of with standard CO detectors.
If you have any questions about carbon monoxide detector maintenance, or if you’d like a heating or cooling system serviced or installed in your home, contact Jerry Kelly Heating & Air Conditioning, your Saint Charles, MO, heating and air conditioning company. We service the St. Louis area, including towns like Ballwin, Chesterfield, and Clarkson Valley.
