Faulty smoke alarms installed in the State College area will be replaced by a contractor who will be hired and paid by the parent company.

Although there have been no reports of alarms failing to detect smoke or carbon monoxide, BRK Brands Inc. plans "voluntary corrective action" to fix the problem, according to a company statement.

Tim Knisely, senior fire and housing inspector for the Centre Region Code Administration, said BRK Brands Inc. is doing a voluntary recall of the alarms, which have already been pulled from the shelves.

Knisely said the alarms themselves work, but the batteries go dead more quickly than they should.

He said that people who had faulty alarms installed should keep retesting the batteries in them or replace the alarms.

According to the BRK Brands Inc. statement, the corporation is aware of premature low-battery indications in some of its First Alert ONELINK smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, models SA500 and SCO500.

He said First Alert notified all the suppliers of the affected alarms to pull them off the shelves in late February, and Home Depot is no longer permitted to sell them.

Knisely said the approximately 7,000 of these alarms that were sold in the Centre region will be replaced.

An Independent Testing Lab (ITL) has been hired to test the alarms and determine why the batteries die so quickly, Knisely said.

He said BRK Brands Inc. is going to hire a contractor to supply the labor to replace the faulty alarms, and they are going to pay for the replacement of all of the affected alarms -- which will rectify the problems in State College.

A timeline for the replacement of the alarms is yet to be determined, Knisely added.

Bill Frantz, store manager of Wal-Mart, 373 Benner Pike, said that both Wal-Marts in State College do not sell the affected models of the smoke alarms.

"We have not had any recalls on those items at this Wal-Mart. The other Wal-Mart in town sells the same merchandise as we do, so most likely we never sold them," he said.

The State College Borough Council extended the deadline for property owners to install replacement detectors in every bedroom of a rental property until July 1, Knisely said.

Knisely said the council of government code committee did not want just one option for an owner to go out and buy a new smoke alarm.

"If we get to July 1 and the faulty alarms still are not fixed, they will have only one option of a smoke alarm to use in order to have one with wireless technology. One option is made by Kidde Brand; they are the manufacturers of other wireless smoke alarms," he said.

By October 2007, those smoke alarms need to be installed in a way that if one smoke alarm sounds, they all sound, Knisely said.

Wireless technology lets this be done without one having to rewire their whole house.

"This will provide a safer environment for rental owners and tenants as well," he said.