What? My Smoke Detector is Radioactive?

I think it is wonderful that California now requires Carbon Monoxide detectors to be installed in the house, I bought one as soon I heard about it. However, staring at both the carbon monoxide alarm and the smoke detector, made me want to purchase a combined one just so the house looks more simple. While trying to read the review of the rating of each product online, I was surprised to see a review that mentioned how the smoke detector uses radioactive material to work. What? My smoke detector is radioactive? That sounds horrible. I continued on to read the reviews and see how people are arguing that the amount is so minimal. However, it got me thinking if there are smoke detectors that don't use this technology at all.

Apparently, there are two types of smoke detectors: photoelectric detector and ionization detector. And it is the ionization detector that contains radioactive Americium 241 or Radium 226. Here is a link for more information:

http://iicph.org/radioactive_fire_detectors

I am actually not sure what my current smoke detector is, I never really thought about looking at it, that is probably bad, but for sure I know my next one to purchase I will look for a photoelectric type.

Another interesting note I learned about is that Carbon Monoxide detectors all have an expiration date of around 5 years, and they are meant to be replaced when they expire.

Painting with Zero V.O.C. Paint

We finally started our project to repaint the house, we have been holding off this project mainly because of the concerns of the toxic fumes from paint. We didn't want to do it while pregnant and definitely didn't have the time to do it while my daughter was still little also. But now that she can entertain herself a little more, we decided to tackle this. I made sure that we were going to use zero or low V.O.C. paint. Luckily many major brands now make this option. One thing to pay attention to is that some of the zero or low V.O.C. paints are only zero or low V.O.C. on whites, and once you add color it doesn't matter anymore, so you will want to look for description like color is also zero or low V.O.C. The Olympic brand from Lowes is and also Kelly-Moore has it too, probably other brands have it too, but I didn't look further. We decided to go with Kelly-Moore since it has a summer deal coupon that saves you 30% off your purchase. I know there are even safer paints that are made with completely natural ingredients, but I didn't want to go to that extreme since we are on a tight budget. The zero V.O.C. paint from Kelly-Moore really is different from what  I was use to about paints. There is hardly any smell while you paint, a big difference from the nostril burning experience from regular paint. I am pretty sure it is still not that great to be constantly sniffing this thing, so it is still a good idea to ventilate the area, but it sure made the painting experience a lot more pleasurable.