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Fireangel ECO 1 Year Carbon Monoxide Alarm
by k2705
When we first moved into our house one of the things that was on our list was a carbon monoxide alarm, the house came with a fire alarm already fitted but no carbon monoxide alarms so we purchased one to fit in our kitchen where the boiler is. A few weeks ago our carbon monoxide alarm decided it was going to stop working properly and ... kept beeping at us, a little worried it could be a problem with the boiler I checked the instructions and discovered that the beeping it was doing was a sign of a fault. Not wanting to risk being without a carbon monoxide alarm we went out a purchased a new one that day. After having a look around at what was available we decided that the Fireangle Carbon Monoxide alarm was ideal for what we needed, we didn't want anything too expensive, and some of them were very expensive to buy, and we didn't want anything too complicated and fancy, just a basic carbon monoxide alarm that would tell us if there was a leak from the boiler, the Fireangel was ideal for this.
Packaging
The Fireangel Carbon Monoxide alarm came in a plain basic plastic style box which allowed you to clearly see the whole of the carbon monoxide alarm inside. Sat behind the alarm was the instruction booklet which also informed you of the name of the product, that was basically it for the packaging, it was very minimal, not that that bothered me. The alarm was held in place by being sat inside a clear plastic tray made from the same material as the box.
The Alarm
When it came to choosing a new carbon monoxide alarm we didn't want anything too bulky, our old alarm was quite big (slightly larger than a smoke alarm) but it sat quite flat to the wall so ideally we wanted something of a similar size or a little smaller. The Fireangel Alarm is made from plain white plastic, it is rectangle and measure approximately a couple of inches in length and about an inch in height, the alarm is a little wider at the bottom, this is because it is designed so that you can either fix the alarm to the wall (it comes with fixings to do this) or you can stand the alarm up on a surface, at the moment we just have our standing on the side as we have not got round to mounting it on the wall, we have found that it stands up easily and does not keep falling over.
The front of the carbon monoxide alarm has a large round button on the left hand side, this doubles up as a sort of speaker for when the alarm goes off, this is the test button so that you can check the alarm periodically, next to this are 2 LED lights, one is the power light which flashes every minute, this tells you the alarm is working and the other has the word alarm written next to it and flashes when the alarm goes off, the only other detail on the front of the alarm is the word Fireangel written in a dark grey writing. The Fireangel Alarm is battery operated, the battery compartment is on the back of the alarm and simply slides off and clicks back in place, the alarm takes two AA batteries. On the back of the alarm is where the two hooks are in order to mount the alarm on the wall. Other features of the Fireangel Carbon Monoxide Alarm include
* An advanced sensor which detects low levels of carbon monoxide, this means that an early warning will be given should there be carbon monoxide in your home
* Continuously detects carbon monoxide
* The alarm is said to be resistant to false alarms which can be caused by normal household activities
* The alarm sounds at 85db
Setting up the Fireangel Carbon Monoxide Alarm couldn't be more simple, you just insert the two AA batteries into the back of the alarm (I think these came with it) and then perform a test by pressing the test/ reset button on the front of the alarm, this will sound the alarm and the LED next to the work Alarm on the front will flash red for a short amount of time to indicate that the alarm is working correctly, it literally took a few seconds to set up the alarm and really wasn't complicated at all. It is recommended that you test the alarm every now and then to check that it is still working correctly and that the batteries do not need replacing, if there is a fault with the carbon monoxide detector or the batteries are low then it will give off one audible chirp every minute for up to 30 days. Other ways to keep your Fireangel alarm working correctly is to keep it clean of dust and dirt, the vents are on the sides of the alarm and it is recommended that you vacuum them with a soft brush attachment on your hoover, you should not use wipes or cleaning products on the alarm.
Price & Availability
We purchased our Fireangel Carbon Monoxide Alarm from our local Tesco and it cost us about £15.00, personally I thought this was a very good price for this item, we had looked at similar products in other shops and they were being sold for £20.00 upwards and that was just the basic alarms, anything fancy with a few more features were extremely expensive. All we wanted was a basic alarm that would let us know if there was a problem with our boiler so this was perfect, I would certainly say it was well worth the money.
My Opinion
I am very pleased with my Fireangel Carbon Monoxide Alarm, firstly I like the design of it, it is small and compact meaning it does not stand out or look silly in my kitchen, I also like that fact that you have the choice of having it mounted on the wall or standing on the side, this also means that the alarm is portable so you could even take it if you went on holiday, the small size means that you could easily pack it in your luggage. The alarm is made of a tough plastic making it very durable. I found the alarm very easy to set up and it took no time at all, the alarm does come with an instruction booklet which is worth having a quite read through but I did not need this in order to set the alarm up, I have since read through the booklet at it does contain some useful information about how to care for your alarm and what it check to ensure it is working correctly. The other main thing which drew me to this product was the cheap price, compared to similar products this is very reasonably priced and was the cheapest we found when looking around and works in exactly the same way as some of the more expensive brands. Should I have to purchase another carbon monoxide in the future I would definitely consider buying another Fireangel and would certainly recommend it to anyone else.
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Sleepsafe Carbon Monoxide Dectectors
by chrisandmark
A few years ago we had a carbon monoxide near miss, a household problem that if not noticed would have definitely caused carbon monoxide build-up in the house. It frightened the life out of me and Mark so we took the step of buying a (hugely expensive) electric carbon monoxide detector and alarm, which gave off so many false readings ... that we almost bankrupted ourselves calling gas engineers out - so after a stressful month with no working carbon monoxide detector I picked up a very basic Sleepsafe detector to tide us over until we replaced our super duper alarm. And years later I'm still buying them, having been told by both a fireman and a gas safety engineer that it's as effective as a £100 detector that was being advertised as a 'True Lifesaver' at the time.
It's a very simple idea; a small square piece of plastic with a scratchy beige dot in the centre, if carbon monoxide is present in the air the dot will react with it and start darkening. Obviously there's no warning sound so you need to physically check the detectors on a regular basis, but after a while this becomes part of your routine and really it's so important that it's not something I'd forget to do anyway.
Printed around the dot is a fairly thick 'control', the plastic has been printed to match the dot so that you can see at a glance whether it's changed colour. Otherwise the rest of the detector is white with pretty loud red writing, it's not something you'd buy to embellish your home but in this instance I'd definitely go for functionality over style! Luckily I've never had to vouch for the fact that the dot changes colour well, but when a friend had a carbon monoxide leak this same detector darkened quickly to such a degree that it would have been impossible not to have noticed.
You're advised to place a Sleepsafe carbon monoxide detector near your boiler and gas fire, we had our rarely used fire taken out last year so only have the boiler to worry about - I place a detector above the boiler and another one lives in a small wall recess on the landing outside the bedrooms. Using the two prevents me from relying on a 'dud', which apparently can happen (albeit rarely), and gives me peace of mind that if one of the units did malfunction we would still be alerted to poisonous fumes inside our home.
The back of each detector has a sticky pad to enable you to attach it to the wall, over the years these have proved not to be the stickiest sticky pads known to man but when they end up pulling away from the wall I just use a spot of Blu Tack to pop it back into place and that works just as well. On the front of the detector is a space to write the date when the unit was opened, and also somewhere for you to write the number of your trusted CORGI engineer - the date bit being important as these detectors have a lifespan of four months so you need to know when the time has come to replace it. I change mine more frequently, usually every two months, but that's mainly because I'm a total worrier about carbon monoxide and want to make sure I'm as fully protected as possible.
For peace of mind I absolutely 100% recommend these Sleepsafe Carbon Monoxide Detectors, they do the job and I honestly can't see the point of buying an all-singing-all-dancing machine for standard family use - there's a place for those units that have an audible alarm obviously, but for us this much more basic detector is fine. I usually buy mine from Halfords where they're currently priced at just £1 - which in my opinion is a small price to pay to potentially save the lives of your family.
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Yale Electronic Home Safe
by jacb1983
My husband and I have had one of these Yale Electronic Home Safes for around 3 years now, buying it after we unfortunately got burgled. Thankfully the *******s were disturbed, so they didn't actually get away with anything, but we felt at the time that it would be a good idea to get a little safe to keep valuables in and stash this away ... somewhere hidden in the house to make things a little more secure.
We only paid around £30 for this safe from a small electronics shop, and we chose the black version over the silver colour the safe came in because we thought this both looked nicer although it doesn't really matter as our safe is well hidden, and any potential burglars wouldn't have a clue it was where it is anyway. No-one aside from myself and my husband knows where it is, so there's no risk of a burglar or other villain from spotting it or knowing about it.
One of the features I liked about this safe is the fact you can bolt it to the floor, so in the event that it's whereabouts are discovered, a robber can't simply pick the safe up and walk off with it, opening it at their leisure someplace safe. We found bolting it to a immovable surface to be fairly easy, I think it only took my husband 5 minutes to bolt it down in the hiding place.
The safe comes with full, easy to understand instructions on how to use it, starting with inserting 2 x AA batteries into the door of the safe to power the locking bolts that slide shut once the door is closed, locking the safe. Once the batteries are in, you enter your chosen 3-8 digit code on the easy to use keypad, and set this code as the one to lock/unlock your safe.
The safe also comes with 2 overriding keys, which if you forget your pin, you can use to unlock the safe manually. We keep these well hidden in the house also, so no one would know what the keys were for even if they found them, plus the keyhole on the safe is hidden (you'll find out where when you buy one) so it's not even obvious there IS a key for the safe.
One of the extra features is that if you put the wrong pin number into the safe 3 times in a row, an alarm goes off. We set this off once to test how loud it was etc, and it was enough to be heard from our bedroom at the other end of the house, and would probably wake us if we were asleep. The alarm runs for a couple of minutes and I imagine it's noisy enough to put people off trying to steal from the safe, particularly at night time.
We've had to change the batteries twice in about 3 years since buying this safe, but there is a battery indicator on the front of the LCD display on the safe, meaning you are always alerted as to when they are running out. If by any chance you do let the batteries die completely, you'll have to use the override keys to open the safe.
At approximately 25cm x 40cm x 25cm in dimensions, this safe is big enough for us to keep a variety of valuable in it, and the safe is very easy to set up and operate. The safe is a tough, heavy little thing made out of toughened steel so it won't give in to being battered by power tools, which is handy. Whilst this safe might not keep a hardened professional criminal away from it's contents for long, we feel that the safe is secure and tough enough to deter most petty criminals and house burglers, and we feel much better having our most valuable items safely locked away in this safe, hidden in the house.
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