There’s was a smoke detector in someone’s house that I saw with a test button that said “push and hold to test weekly”. Just who tests their smoke detector weekly?
Nobody, and that doesn’t test the sensor, it just sounds the horn, which could give someone a false sense of security thinking their detector works when it actually may not. This is why you’re supposed to replace them every 10 years or so, especially with ionization alarms as the radioactive material probably becomes less sensitive. Photoelectric or dual sensor types are better though, if you actually wanted to see if the sensor works, you should test it with a match or something, or a safer alternative would be to use some of that smoke detector testing spray, although that has actually damaged the sensor in some cases.
Americium-241 has a half life of 432.2 years. The capacitors in smoke alarms will burst long before the radioactive material decays.
Oh, whoops…lol. I should’ve known that since I knew radioactive material has one of the longest half lives of any element or compound. I’m not a science nerd though haha.