Change Batteries when You change Your Clocks

We fall back this Sunday, November 6.  With the time change comes a reminder to change the batteries in your detectors from Rabun County Assistant Fire Chief Justin Upchurch.  “With the replaceable battery smoke alarms that they have, most of them are 9-volt, if you do have one of these, we recommend that in the spring and fall when you change your clocks to go ahead and change the batteries, make sure that they are always in working order and as well as that every month you should be testing your smoke alarm to make sure it’s working properly.”  Upchurch warns about throwing away batteries.  “Another thing that people need to think about is when they are disposing of their 9-volt batteries.  There is a safety issue with just throwing your 9-volts in the trash and most smoke alarms do have 9-volts, so something people need to think about is before you throw your 9-volts away to put a piece of duct tape between the contacts because there have been instances where the 9-volts have contacted a piece of metal and did a short circuit and acred and started a fire.  So, we always need to be safe when disposing of 9-volt batteries.”  Fires across the nation kill more people than natural disasters do worldwide, so you can see the importance of having working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in your home. As you fall back this weekend, please follow this safety advice so you will be around to spring forward next year.