Sunday marks the end of Daylight savings time.

And when you turn your clocks back one hour Saturday night, don’t forget to check the batteries in your smoke detectors. It could save your family’s life.

Captain Victor McCaskill with the Rockingham Fire Department said every daylight savings, or end of daylight savings, is a good reminder to make sure your smoke detectors work.

Throughout the year many smoke detectors will stop working either because they are old and need to be replaced or because the battery died. The National Fire Protection Association recommends smoke detectors be replaced every 10 years.

And McCaskill suggests the smoke detectors are checked every month to ensure they’re working.

Another typical problem is that people will remove the batteries of the smoke detectors if they have one that’s really sensitive and goes off at the slightest exposure to steam or smoke, but McCaskill said there’s a way to avoid that.

“The key thing is that smoke detectors collect dust, so when you clean your house, clean the smoke detector, blow them out,” McCaskill said.

McCaskill said smoke detectors in new homes are typically hardwired into the home’s electrical system so it’s important to have a working battery in there in case the power goes out.

“It’s good to test every month because you never know when the batteries will go bad,” McCaskill said. “If you have children, make sure there’s a detector in each bedroom because it could be hard for them to hear otherwise.”

Because smoke detectors do need to be replaced every 10 years, McCaskill said if you have the type that’s hardwired into the home, it’s best to have an electrician do the work if you’re not used to working with electricity.

Another important check to make at this time is to the carbon monoxide detectors.

“Make sure if you’re heating with gas, using dryers, etc., that you have a carbon monoxide detector in your home,” McCaskill said. “Because newer homes especially are built so tight, with no air coming in our out, so there’s no ventilation going through the house. Gas stoves, heaters .. they can emit carbon monoxide. Also with attached garages, if a car is running, the gas can go into the house. If you’re having headaches or waking up sick, you might have a problem.

“Once you hear that alarm go off, leave the house and ventilate it to get the carbon monoxide out of there. If the alarm goes off, call 911.”

McCaskill said those using propane or Natural Gas especially need to have a carbon monoxide detector in their homes. These detectors should be hung at eye level or lower on the wall —some carbon monoxide detectors can be plugged into a wall outlet.

“You don’t want it all the way on the ceiling because once it goes off it’ll be too late,” McCaskill said.

With both alarms the important thing is to test them. And it may seem obvious, but McCaskill said when you test your alarms, just hit the “test” button, don’t hold a flame or anything to the detectors.

“The key thing is to make sure you know what the alarms sound like,” McCaskill said. “Know the difference between your alarm clock and smoke detector, and the smoke detector from the carbon monoxide detector. Also, interconnect all smoke alarms in the house so when one goes off, they all go off so it will wake everyone up.”

The National Fire Protection Association reports that a home fire death occurs somewhere in the nation about every three hours. In fact, home fires kill 540 children 14 years old and younger each year.

The association reported that 96 percent of American homes have at least one smoke alarm, but 19 percent of all homes don’t have a working alarm mostly due to dead or missing batteries. A chirping smoke alarm means the battery is dying, so if you hear that, don’t just remove the battery because the noise is annoying, replace it.

Forty percent of home fire deaths result from fires in homes without working smoke alarms.

Children ages 5 and under are 1.5 times as likely as the population as a whole to die in home fires. Seniors age 75 and older are three times more likely to die in a home fire.

The hours of 11 p.m.-7 a.m. are the peak alarm times for home fire deaths, when people tend to be a sleep and the house is likely dark.

The National Fire Protection Association also said carbon monoxide poisoning kills nearly 700 people in year, in non fire situations.

To cut down on your risk during an electrical outage, the association said to use the time change as a reminder to check your flashlight batteries as well so you use flashlights instead of candles, further reducing your risk of a house fire.

The association said candles, cooking and heating are the three main leading causes of injuries in home fires.

n Staff writer Eren Tataragasi can be reached at (910)997-3111 ext. 19 or at etataragasi@yourdailyjournal.com.