Monday, July 22, 2024

Chirping Smoke Alarms

One of our smoke alarms is chirping.   That means low battery.   They are so loud it took seversl minutes to Identify the culprit.   What frustrates me is that these units have a 9V battery as backup to the house current. 

Why?  Is the idea that you might have a fire during a power failure?  Why not use rechargeable batteries for backup?

I am alone today (Rhonda was called to jury duty). I could probably reach it but if I fell I would never hear the end of it 

Actually,  it was q CO detector that has followed us from the last two houses.   I wish that had distinctive sounds.

4 comments:

  1. There are alarms now with a 10 year battery. Once they die, you toss the whole thing and get a new one.

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  2. All of these detectors (Smoke and CO, wired and battery) have an inherent lifespan that is no longer than 10 years.
    The ones from more recently in this century do a death-beep that can't be stopped once they reach the designated "end of life" time.
    My tips:
    • there are plug-adapters so that one doesn't need to stick with the same brand as existing for the wired-in detectors -- in fact some have changed connector type so one might need adapters even with the same brand.
    • any electrician can do the replacement to any brand detector without adapters.
    • all brands say you can't mix brands on a wired system, but you can.
    • if one has started its EOL beep, the others aren't far behind, might as well replace them all if the manufactured date is 7-10 years ago.
    • If you have many interlinked detectors, I find it well worth getting the more expensive sort that announce which room has triggered the alarm. For every 10 I've bought, there's been one that failed prematurely and having that feature made the troubleshooting very simple.
    • Refrigerators and freezers are soundproof for the frequencies emitted by the beep. If you can't stop the beep, placing the detector in the fridge will allow you to sleep, and is also a location that won't be out of mind so that you forget the problem.

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  3. Mine only ever start chirping at 3 in the morning...

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  4. The battery idea is because your fire might be due to or in the location of your electrical system, killing the power before there's enough smoke to set off the detector. Same with CO2.

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