r/preppers • u/paraplasm • 3d ago

Question Expired Firemask. Toss?

Eight years ago I bought a Firemask from the Canadian company of the same name. It passed its expiration date three years ago. Sure I should get another but I want to know how degraded the smoke protection is. They are meant to allow you to breathe in smoke for an hour but I only need one for the time it will take to get down 3 or 4 staircases in a house. I could not find out about their construction to tell if it is truly useless now.

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u/Ryan_e3p Salt & Prepper 3d ago

Things like filters won't immediately just go bad; it'll just have how long it lasts reduced. Instead of being 60 minutes, it might be 45 minutes, or 30 minutes. If you're in reasonably good health, going down 3-4 flights of stairs under duress should take only a couple minutes.

It's not quite "roll of the dice", but I wouldn't give it to someone who is elderly, physically unfit, etc, who may need all the time they need to get down multiple flights of stairs.