Smoke alarm going off intermittently

[wylie]

We had our sparkie replace an old hard wired smoke alarm with a new one a few weeks ago. He did say that sometimes they are "crook" straight out of the box.

This morning, hubby got up early, lit a fire in our firebox, closed the doors and at 5.30 I jolted upright to three shrieks from the smoke alarm. Since then it has been going off, three shrieks or two lots of three, then nothing for up to half an hour or more and then another three or six.

Fire is no longer lit and I hung a sheet at the doorway to stop it happening. The sheet clearly is not working. There is no rhyme nor reason to its going off every now and then.

Rather than bother our sparkie today, I'm wondering how we stop it going off through the night. We had this once before on another hard wired alarm where hubby had to rip it from the ceiling, turn the power off and disconnect it and tape up the wiring before we all went mad. He knows what he is doing, and the power would be off and it would get us through until we get the sparkie back, but is that the only way?

 

[Propertunity]

That's pretty much the only way wylie. It is a dud smokie or a dud battery.

 

[marg4000]

Have you replaced the battery? Hard wired alarms usually have a back-up battery in case of power failure.
Marg

 

[Doovalacky]

Probably too late now but try putting a vacuum cleaner pipe up against the vents on the head. Sometimes dust/plaster or insects get inside the detection chamber and the airflow can suck it clear. That's assuming you don't have the $20 thermal's.

If you do ask for the photoelectric style I consider them a lot better than the cheap thermals that go off every time they get a blast of hot air.

 

[wylie]

Thanks folks. They are only about eight weeks "new". New batteries, new alarms.

Nothing dusty or unusual, except for today being the first time we've had the firebox working since it went in, but with doors closed, and it was not smokey at all. Luckily, it stopped after about an hour of intermittently going off just for three beeps, sometimes six. Sixteen year old in the bedroom one metre away (but with door closed) slept through it all .

Will try another fire tomorrow and if it goes off, we'll have to get the sparky back to replace it. It is in the same place as the one that has been there for ten years, and it never went off when we used the firebox.

It made me think of a show I saw a while ago that tested this shrill sounding type that is used in most houses, compared to a smoke alarm with a lower pitch. Most people slept through the shrill one but woke with the lower pitched one. I wonder why the low pitched alarms are not used?

 

[goonandtell]

also most hard wired detectors i have seen can be removed with out taking off the wiring, a bracket is left in place but the unit unclips, although it does take a little more care than smacking it with a broom which when its blasting away is tempting.

 

[aussierogue]

Do you have geckos?

In qld apparently they get into the smoke alarms. They love hanging around in there..

Saw an invention on 'the new inventors specifically for this problem of geckos in smoke alarms which make them go off!

 

[Pa1nter]

I have had a similar problem from a tenant,

Batteries were replaced by them,

Still happening,

I used a 12 volt blower and blew the dust out of them (3 of them) and I haven't had a phone call back so I assume they are all fixed.

This is a fussy tenant who is not afraid to let us know if everything is not perfect and I cleaned them over two months ago.