Here’s a question for you: Did you know if you sell your home, you are required by law to have both smoke and carbon monoxide detectors?
California has state requirements that have been in place since 2010. Not having the detectors in place can be costly by requiring the appraiser to go back out to confirm the detectors have been installed. They charge $175 and then who is going to pay for that charge? The homeowner who didn’t have them in the first place, or does the buyer have to eat it? A good buyer’s agent will write it in the contract that if smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are not installed at the time the appraiser comes out, the seller will pay for the re-inspection. A good listing agent will make sure they are in the house before it goes on the market. In California specifically, every home must have one CO detector on every level and there should be a smoke detector in every bedroom, in the hall outside the room, and at least one total detector on each level.
Smoke detectors and CO detectors are super affordable and really useful to have in your home anyway. You don’t want to risk a fire, leak, or explosion just because you didn’t want to take the time or pay the money to install proper safety equipment.
These days there are long-lasting (10 years) combined smoke and CO detectors, so you don’t have to change those beeping ones when the battery dies.
I had a personal experience, my ex-husband got so frustrated by the beeping, he finally removed the batteries because he got tired of replacing them. When he moved out, I put batteries back in all of them. One night, I had lit a candle in the bathroom and forgot about it and it had some decorative leaves around the holder and it started to burn. I had fallen asleep on the couch and the smoke detector went off. I rushed in to see the candle holder on fire, quickly put it out, and had only a slight burn mark on the counter. It could have been much worse if I had not put back the batteries!
