So we all almost died this morning.
Like an idiot, I left a pizza box and yesterday's junk mail on top of our stove for lack of counter space. At some point early this morning the stove top was turned on (I presume by our cat). Thank God I woke up to the smell of smoke and had the presence of mind in my groggy state to realize something was wrong. I got to the smoldering pile of cardboard embers and paper just as the it was starting to really flame up and was able to quickly douse it out. Now the house is fully of smoke but there was no other damage and everyone's ok.
Our house has two smoke/CO2 detectors. They're both in the basement. I'm going to fix this situations, probably today. The questions now are what type of detectors should I buy, how much should I spend and how many do I really need and where should I put them.
I really want a Nest Protect.
https://nest.com/smoke-co-alarm/meet-nest-protect/A month or two ago I researched them quite a bit but in the end didn't want to spend the money because while 1 device is an affordable and justifiable expense, buying multiple ones adds up very quickly and part of their coolness is the interconectivity of having multiple devices.
Our house is a fairly small 1000 square feet. 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, living room and a kitchen+dinning area. It's recommended that you have a detector in each bedroom and outside the sleeping area. That's 4 right there. Not happening. But I could put one in the hallway outside the bedrooms that are all clustered together. But thats not the side of the house with the kitchen/dinning and living room. So I suppose I could get 2, one at the end of the hall by the bedroom doors and one in the kitchen? Although, they'd only be like 40 feet apart. And If I'm going all in on the nest, do I get one for the basement even though there's already 2 traditional detectors (one near the furnace, one at the top of the stairs).
Or do I just cheap out and buy a few affordable regular dumb smoke detectors.
Thoughts?