Smoke Alarms, help!

[cirquelover]

So my smoke alarms started ringing about midnight last night. I called my husband and he said remove the batteries and all would be well until he comes home. He was wrong!! It started again at 8AM. They have been going off whenever they seem to feel like it! Should this even be possible with no batteries?!?

I will be an insane, nervous wreck by the time he comes home this weekend if I can't firgure it out! If I was taller I think I'd be ripping them off the ceiling right now!

You wanna know the really sad part about this whole mess, the kid never even budged last night! Every smoke alarm in the house was ringing, even the one in his room. He never moved an inch! As a mother that scares the crap out of me!!

You should see the poor cats. They're even worse off than I am! I haven't seen the little one since breakfast and I doubt if she'll come out the rest of the day!

Thanks for letting me vent. Any advice would be welcome and I do mean any at this point!!

[BarTopDancer]

Sounds like they are also electrically wired.

Might want to check the circuit that they are connected to.

[Gemini Cricket]

Is it one of those fire alarms that's really electric and the batteries are only used as back up?

[cirquelover]

Sadly, I don't know the answer to either of those questions but I am looking for the owners manual now. They are the original smoke alarms that were installed when the house was built but it's only 7-8 years old. I wouldn't think they's be going this crazy!

[DreadPirateRoberts]

The last set of smoke alarms I bought had a "feature" where they would set themselves off after 7 or 8 years. The idea being that after that amount of time, they needed to be replaced anyway.

[swanie]

YES it is possible! Our hallway smoke detector started chirping in the middle of the night back in December. After replacing the batteries and having it still go off, we pulled it out of the ceiling. Well, that didn't slow it down either! What we discovered was that smoke detectors have roughly a 10 year life expectancy...and once they start to fail they'll go off randomly. After weeks of intermittent alarms, Mr. Swanie finally replaced all 6 detectors in our house and it solved the problem!

Can you post the make and model of your detectors? There was one manufacturer that seemed to have more problems than the others.

swanie

[cirquelover]

well, I got up on a step stool to check manufacturer and as soon as I touched it, it started screaming in my ears!! Aarghh

I guess I buy alarms and see if anyone I know can help me install them. Otherwise it will be a very loud and nerve frazzling week!

[Prudence]

There was a story about smoke alarms on the news this morning. There are apparently two types of alarms, and each is better at detecting a different type of fire - flaming or smoldering. I obviously haven't done any independent research, but this might be something to consider if you're going to be replacing them anyhow.

[swanie]

I can tell you that changing them out isn't hard at all. Mr. Swanie did it in about an hour.

The older, more "problematic" brand that we had was called "Lifesaver." They also go by the the brand name "Kidde." If you want a good laugh, read the product reviews for our old smoke detectors... http://www.amazon.com/Kidde-1275-Bat...1030266&sr=8-4

swanie

[Morrigoon]

Kidde makes fire extinguishers too.

I would check and make sure your alarms are not also carbon monoxide alarms. If they are, you might have something to worry about. But that's not *too* common yet, so they probably aren't. If you're replacing them though, you might want to get ones that do the carbon monoxide thing as well.