You never know when you’re going to stumble into a dangerous situation, but an incident involving one of my company’s second homes taught me that taking an expert’s advice can lead to a lucky outcome. Let me start with a little background. My company builds in Flagstaff, Ariz., an area two hours north of Phoenix that attracts second-home owners seeking cool summer temperatures and winter skiing opportunities. Because second homes account for a big part of my business, I’ve learned that they require a slightly different client approach and construction process than primary houses.
Second homes are only occupied on holidays, weekends, or for sporadic periods when they are usually loaded up with the homeowners and their family and friends. The high-occupancy usage generates the need for additional insulation, ventilation, water heating (lots of guests means lots of showers), durable flooring and finishes, and even additional parking. Overall, our design and construction team has learned that we should design and equip the operational and functional areas of the home to fit part-time users. A high level of personal service from my company is always a major consideration for second-home buyers selecting their contractor, and we have built this into our business procedures.
Like most builders, I’m always looking for products that will improve my houses. During one of my annual visits to the NAHB International Builders’ Show, I saw some new safety components for the home, including carbon monoxide (CO) detectors. When I returned home I spoke with the director of our local building department about these products and the possibility that future codes would require them.
He was very candid in his response. He told me there were not any plans to require carbon monoxide detectors in the near future because the technology was new and there had been some failures and false alarms. Cooking vapors, humidity conditions, and dust elements had caused problems with their reliability according to reports reviewed by his department and our local fire officials. But he still thought the CO detectors were a great technological advance, and even though his department did not require them to be installed in conjunction with smoke detectors, he thought it would be a great idea to use them. After all, carbon monoxide is a gas generated by combustion of organic fuel products commonly found in houses, such as natural gas, propane, wood, and paper and by automobile exhaust. Because CO is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, it can be a silent killer. As a result of that conversation, I contacted my electrician and my security system subcontractor, and we started using CO detectors as part of our standard building package.
Several years after I began installing CO detectors, one of my second-home clients let his brother’s family use his Flagstaff home for a weekend ski trip. As it has been for many years, my company is always there to offer service to our customers as well as to their guests. I have learned that if my company is going to be involved in building second homes, service and maintenance had better be part of the equation. Who better to call for help than the builder? And the word-of-mouth referrals? It’s part of our marketing plan.
The guest family arrived at the home about 7 p.m. on a Friday. At approximately 11 p.m. I received a phone call at home from the homeowner explaining to me that one of the smoke detectors was going off and that the noise was keeping his brother’s family awake. He said the malfunctioning smoke detector was in the ceiling, about 18 feet up, and asked me to bring a ladder and disconnect the detector so everyone could get some sleep before their big day of skiing.
Not a problem. I told the owner that I would be out to the house in no more than 30 minutes, as soon as I could get to the office, grab a ladder, and then drive out to his home. In the meantime, I asked my owner to call his brother back and tell him to open up the doors and windows to ventilate the house because that might cause the detector to shut off its siren.
On my drive out to the house I kept turning over in my head the question of what could have caused this problem. The brother probably had a nice big fire going in the masonry fireplace and had the flue only partially open, or some smoke had exited the firebox and floated up to the ceiling-mounted detector, or maybe it was just a failing battery. We all know how that little chirping noise can drive anyone crazy when the batteries are low! And, oh yeah, Murphy’s Law strikes again. Why couldn’t this smoke detector sound off at 5 p.m. or 7 p.m.? How come it had to wait until nearly midnight?
