Mayfield Village Providing Free Smoke Detectors for Apartments

About 300 Mayfield Village residences will be receiving free smoke detectors. There are being installed in 252 apartment buildings and 38 condominiums.

The photoelectric detectors with 10-year lithium batteries were purchased with leftover money from a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant for radio communications equipment. The money can be used for public safety and fire officials thought it was important to have working smoke detectors in high-density areas.

"That's a big problem right now," said Lt. Mike Girbino of the Mayfield Village Fire Department. He said firefighters often find smoke detectors that are not working.

"Ionization technology is more prone to false alarms," Girbino said. "So people remove the batteries and that renders the detectors useless."

Photoelectric smoke detectors can be placed close to kitchens and bathrooms because steam from showering and cooking does not effect them the same way as with ionization detectors, he said.

"When there are large amounts of smoke they (ionization detectors) fail to respond fast enough," he said. "They are more sensitive to invisible products of combustion you can't see. They're not as good with slower-moving fires with a lot of smoke. Thirty or 40 years ago, you didn't have the same synthetics and plastics. They had natural fibers, which burn differently."

Ionization detectors are better at sensing fires which spread rapidly, but Girbino said photoelectric is the right choice if you only have one.

"We really feel that the primary smoke detector technology should be photoelectric," he said.

Girbino said the difference in smoke detector technology came to light after fires at Ohio State University and Ohio University in 2003 and 2005. Parents of children who died called attention to the fact that fully functional detectors never went off, he said.

However, ionization smoke detectors are still popular because they cost $6, compare to $20 to $25 for photoelectric ones.

"What are you going to buy? Not knowing anything about the two, you're going to go with the one that costs less," Girbino said.

Girbino also recently submitted another FEMA Assistance to Firefighters Grant request for $39,000 to pay for smoke detectors and labor to have them available for every home in Mayfield Village.

"Our goal is to get one in every home in the city," he said.