Atwood LPCO Alarm-Design Life

I just discovered a product end-of-life design and thought I would clue you in.

The Atwood alarm for LP gas and CO has a 7 year life.

Exactly at 7 years both LP & CO alarms will not stop alarming. I got out the manual and found out  you need to buy a new one.

Carol at PC sells these for $50, I have seen prices as high as $130 for the same one on-line.
So for 2012, 2013 PC RV's they will ALL be failing.

Simple installation but now you no when you need to buy a new LPCO alarm.

I learned the same for our detector at home with same 7 year termination.  It beeps like it has a bad battery.  The only solution is replacement as stated on the unit.

Funny that the unit in our PC has not expired given our 12 year ownership.  Maybe the clock stops when the power is killed while in "storage" mode.

Not sure, but I think the reason ionizing smoke detectors have an expiration date is that they depend on a speck of radioactive material for the ion source, which is spent after 7 years.  Maybe co2 detectors work the same way.  If so, the fact that it starts beeping after 7 years may only be because they built a clock into it as a reminder.  I don't think the 7 years is extended by turning off the power -- just the alarm.

We picked up our unit in May 2013. It's now August 2025. Our CO2 detector just went into "end of life" alert mode. We'll be hunting the replacement and hoping for a direct swap out. We're also hoping that 48 hour grace period you get by hitting the reset button can be repeated multiple times as we are far from any shops and Amazon deliveries take a few extra days to reach out nearest "town". At least we are scheduled to stay in place for another 3 weeks so getting something shipped should work out.