Smoke alarms keep your family safe. You can get a smoke alarm that runs just on batteries. You can also get a smoke alarm that is hardwired into your home's electrical system. The benefit of having one of those smoke alarms is that as long as there is power to your house, the smoke alarm will work. They also tend to have battery backups so that losing power to your house doesn't mean that your family isn't protected. If you have never had a hardwired smoke alarm, it will take a little bit of work to install one. 

1. Find where the fire alarm is going to go: There should be a smoke detector outside each bedroom or groups of bedrooms. If you have a multi-level home, you need to have at least one detector per floor. When you have decided the right locations, you need to figure out where on the wall they should go. You should put them up by the ceiling so they don't get banged into and damaged. They should also be placed in between the studs of your walls. They don't need the support of the stud, but they do need access to the wiring, You can use a stud finder to find the studs, and then cut the hole there. 

2. Turn off the power: Because you are going to be working with electricity, you need to turn off the power to the circuit you are working, at the very least. You can do that at your circuit breaker or fuse box. Take out the fuse or turn off the appropriate circuit breaker. If you aren't sure which circuit you are going to be working on, you should kill the power to the entire house by using the master switch. 

3. Run some wiring: You will have to install a junction box to power the detector. Then you will have to run wiring from your new detector to the breaker box. When you get to the breaker box, you will need to attach the wiring to the breaker box. That will involve stripping the ends of the wire and then finding a 20 amp circuit breaker that isn't already in use and attaching the wires to that spot. Back at the junction box you will need to attach the new wires to the harness inside your new smoke detector. If you did it correctly, that smoke alarm should no be hardwired into your house. 

Since it involves working with electricity, installing a hardwired smoke alarm on your own can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. If you want it done right, you need to have an electrician come in and do it for you. That way you know that there won't be any shorts in the circuit that could cause the detector to fail. To learn more, contact a business like Albarell Electric Inc.