November 3, 2019, ROBBINSVILLE, NJ — New Jersey enacted a law requiring all single fire alarms be changed out an with a unit with a 10 year “sealed battery” (Usually used in an older home) If you have a hard wired smoke alarm system (usually in a newer or renovated home) where detectors are hooked together with a 110 volt system with a communication wire between, those detectors still have a backup battery in them that needs to be changed. If you don’t change the back up battery in those units they may fail during a power outage, cause a false alarm or chirp every 15 seconds indicating a low battery condition. You should still test both single station and hard wired units at least monthly and change the batteries in them as per manufactures recommendations that came with the unit, usually when we change the clocks we change the batteries as a reminder.

The State of New Jersey also enacted a law requiring a carbon monoxide alarm in any home or business that has a fuel burning appliance or attached garage. Many of these carbon monoxide alarms run on batteries and it is a good time to change the batteries and/or backup batteries in the plug in units.

In the gallery below there are several informational flyers that were designed by the Monmouth County Fire Prevention and Protection Association to aid you in alarm selection and placement requirements. Always check the manufactures recommendations and instructions that come with each smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarm and fire extinguisher to help determine your specific needs.

Please review the flyers on smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms and fire extinguisher requirements for residential properties in New Jersey.

As a guideline smoke alarms should be replaced in your home every 10 years. Carbon monoxide alarms should be replaced every 7 to 10 years unless specified in the unit’s instruction manual.