Which Co detector ?

Smoke detectors have become an interesting item here in California. As of Jan 2014, the state has banned the 9v battery type only allowing stores to sell the "Long Life" variety, which contain a 10 year battery sealed inside for the life of the detector. Yea, you can still get the 9V replaceable ones on amazon, but not in a sticks and bricks store.

There is not a different type for RVs, but a smoke alar is not a smoke alarm. There are two different technologies, and the difference is important.

Ionization and Photoelectric.

Ionization are cheaper and more prevalent. They cause 95% of all false alarms (like when you boil water of cook bacon). They respond A LITTLE faster (30-60 seconds) than photoelectric to fires with lots of flame and little smoke. But they respond MUCH slower or NOT AT ALL to smoldering high smoke fires!

Photoelectric are a little more expensive, not as prevalent, cause almost no false alarms to cooking (you often see them advertised as "for kitchen"). They respond a little slower to low smoke fires, but much faster to smoldering fires.

There have been many special reports showing how poorly ionization detectors respond compared to photoelectric. A photoelectric may take a couple minutes longer to respond to a low smoke fire, but ionization detectors take 15-20 MINUTES LONGER to respond to a smoldering fire. There have been reports where working ionization detectors did not alarm AT ALL.

I am in the same situation, I will be getting one of the 10 year photoelectric/co detectors for the trailer. About $40 at the store

John: Whether you can see the difference between normal and 'RV' I know that they they accumulate differently but alarm at the same point. I was told by someone years ago that there is quite a bit more dampening in the alarm detect on the RV model. The guys at the station swapped 4 Co detectors in news vans, then started getting complaints from the crews that they were going off all the time, especially when the side door was opening (they all run stinky Onan 6k gen sets). It was tracked down to the Home Depot off the shelf devices that were bought. Someone went to camping world and bought the RV rated ones and the problem went away. BUT... A Class-A or big TT is much larger than a van, hence the question..

Kevin: I have a digital Co detector mid-ship in addition to the far front and rear. That being a evidential device does move around allot when the cat heater is on and the vents aren't set right.

I'm leaning toward the dual sensor ones listed above. Looking at them yesterday they are more than just twin sensors, but work off of each other. If there is smoke detected but no nox, the sensitivity ramps up a little to avoid a false positive. If there is nox detected but no smoke, it does the same. But if both are detected, it alarms as soon as thresholds are hit. Kinda cool how it works and probably solves the quick ramp Co problem we had in the vans.

Kidde has a relatively new model that has a ten year lithium ion battery. I just got mine so too soon to give feedback. I got tired of always messing with batteries so this may help. Time will tell. Cost is about $50 At Home Depot.

I prefer the CO detector with digital readout - doesn't cost much more than the ones which simply alarm. I bring the detector in the house for the winter and place it near the furnace. Got mine at one of the Big Boxes.

A CO detector is a CO detector. Go to the big box store of your choice and pick one out.

What is needed is a dual chamber detector that will detect CO and smoke from a slow smoldering fire such as may start in a R/V because of electrical fires and fast burning smokeless fires.

After a lot of research.

This is what I found.
A Kidde KN-COSM-XTR-B
That seemed to be best suited for this kind of application.

Like This

They now can be bought at Home Depot, also At Amazon.

Amazon

I suggest you read all the info and make your decision on this but I replaced the ones in my Class C with this one.They are rated for 7 years
and most are only rated for 5,If your RV is older than 5 years old and they haven't been changed they are most likely no good. Mine needed to be replaced so this was a good deal for me. I have had no problems with them.

I hope that this helps,It is better to be safe than sorry and it is a small price to pay for security and peace of mind

SCVJeff wrote:
I know that there are two different classes of Co detectors: residential and RV,

Well.. NO, there are not.... I will give you the example of the CO detector in this house.

Original was an Atwood, RV brand,, half the owners manual said KIDDE not Attwood..

When it died of old age I got a KIDDIE. I found the following difference

Atwood said Attwood on it, Kidie says Kidie
Very slight difference in color, may be due to age
Atwood had an alarm status chart on the battery compartment cover, This explains that the alarm mens (Low Bat, System failure, GET OUT), Kidie did not have that.

Covers were, however, interchangable, so Kidie now has it.

Yes, they are THAT identical, parts from one fit the other 100%

So there is no difference, get whatever fits in the bracket so you do not need to drill new holes.

I've only had the battery operated residential variety. Works great. When I store the trailer for the winter, I bring it into the house where it adds one more level of safety. I usually opt for a model with a display, though that feature has been totally unused this time around, since there have been zero CO detections.