Clocks, Smoke Detectors and Weather Radios: What Do They Have in Common?

Daylight Saving Time is a great opportunity to increase the safety factor in your home.  When you go to bed Saturday night, set your clocks ahead one hour.  On Sunday, change the batteries in all your smoke detectors…and in your NOAA Weather Radio.

If your smoke detectors are battery-powered ONLY (no wiring to your home electricity), you need to change batteries twice a year; first, when you go on Daylight Saving Time in March, and again when you go off of DST in November.

If your smoke detectors are hard-wired to your home’s electricity, you can change your batteries just once a year.

Desktop NOAA Weather Radios also fall into the once-a-year category because they are plugged into the wall as a primary source of power and access their batteries only during a power outage.  If you live in an area of frequent or prolonged outages, the electric power of your batteries may have been used up.  Your weather radio would indicate it is time to change such worn-out batteries.

But even if you never lost power all year long, we still suggest the batteries in your weather radio should be replaced once a year.  Here’s why:

All alkaline batteries contain potassium, which over time can leak from the battery and potentially short-circuit your weather radio or smoke detector.  Even though you have not lost power in the past year and your batteries still contain useful voltage, we suggest you change them once a year.  And what better time to remember to change your weather radio batteries than Daylight Saving Time?

Smoke detectors and NOAA Weather Radios must have their batteries freshened on a regular basis.  Make this a permanent part of your family’s safety plan when you “spring forward” or “fall back”.  Thanks for helping us build a Weather-Ready Nation!