The battery-operated units are easy to disable, said Jung-Han Chen, the city’s director of development. Photoelectric smoke detectors aim a light into a sensing chamber. If smoke enters that chamber, reflecting light onto the light sensor, the alarm is triggered, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, ionization detectors have radioactive material between two electrically charged plates, which ionizes the air and causes current to flow between the plates. When smoke enters the chamber, it disrupts the flow of ions, activating the alarm.
“Statistically, it probably will not save you from a fire,” said Oxford resident Doug Turnbull of the ionization units. “There’s a 56 percent chance it will not alarm, because of disabling and because they frankly don’t work in all fire situations.”
Studies by Underwriters Lab, which certifies smoke alarms, have shown that ionization alarms did not sound in 7 out of 8 synthetic test scenarios, according to the website propertyevaluation.net.
When Turnbull’s daughter Julie and two other Miami University students died in a fire off-campus in 2005, he became “a reluctant expert on smoke detectors.”
(Those) kids would be alive today if there had been a different type of smoke detector in the house,” he said.
Turnbull worked with the Cincinnati City Council to pass legislation that requires photoelectric smoke detectors in rental properties a year ago.
Photoelectric smoke detectors are better at detecting slow-burning, smoldering fires, according to Hamilton Fire Investigator Tom Angst. He recommends an alarm that has both systems — photoelectric and ionization.
“Typically, the smoldering fires are the ones that kill most people because the smoke is what gets them,” Angst said.
Miami University acquired 1,000 detectors last year, said Jenny Levering, the director of fraternity and sorority life at Miami University, noting that many student houses already have at least one.
“We can’t always protect (the students), but this is a step in the right direction,” she said of the city’s proposal.
City council was scheduled to pass legislation at its Dec. 17 meeting regarding new requirements for smoke detectors, but asked city staff to revise it and bring it back for the Jan. 7 meeting so it would require photoelectric smoke detectors.
“I think this is the right thing to do, but I don’t like the way this is written at all … I really think we need to take a look at this and do it right,” Councilman Bob Blackburn said.
The resolution to require photoelectric smoke detectors would also give building owners up to three years to install them if ionization units were already in place. In the meantime, the code would allow battery-operated photoelectric detectors.
“It’s the right thing to do, don’t get me wrong. But it’s the right thing to do right,” Blackburn said.
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