ADVICE NEEDED ASAP!! Smoke Alarms are going off...

[Calindy]

thru-out our house, one goes off, they all go. I cannot find any reason for them to be going off, and I am about to go deaf. Brand USI Electric...any one else have this happen???

[tach18k]

CALL US AT 800-390-4321, EXT. 238

[clint]

The most common cause of smoke detector false alarms is insects. Typically spiders. Smoke detectors come in two varieties, optical which have a chamber sensing for visible smoke and Product of combustion detectors which will detect invisible gasses. In either case if an insect typically a small spider crawls into the chamber it will set off the detector. In some systems, your is apparently one of them, if one detector trips, it trips the rest of the units to initiate the audible annunciation throughout the house.

Immediate remedy is to go out ans start turning off circuit breakers to find the one for the smoke detectors. It should be one breaker for all of them.

Then you clan remove them from the ceiling and clean them, which should be done annually anyway.

Expect to pay from $60. to $110. an hour to have an alarm company or electrician do this.


Clint
Summit Security

[Calindy]

Thanks for the replies!! We took all of them down and replaced all the batteries (even though we just did that in April), and cleaned them, nothing obvious found. I am glad this did not happen at 2AM! Man, I still hear ringing in my ears from all those detectors going off!!

[lagomorphmom]

Clint, just one other thought, do they make combo smoke & carbon monoxide detectors? If so, Calindy might you have some?

[clint]

I've never seen one. Doesn't mean there are not any but you want them to sound different and my personal belief is that CO detectors should be mounted low not high. CO is heavier than air, only just barely.If you read papers on this opinions vary greatly. Generally you want a CO detector near your furnace, which is is not where you want a smoke detector, particularly a products of combustion type.

[lagomorphmom]

Thanks! That's good to know.

[SkierBob]

The most common cause of smoke detector false alarms is insects. Typically spiders. Smoke detectors come in two varieties, optical which have a chamber sensing for visible smoke and Product of combustion detectors which will detect invisible gasses. In either case if an insect typically a small spider crawls into the chamber it will set off the detector. In some systems, your is apparently one of them, if one detector trips, it trips the rest of the units to initiate the audible annunciation throughout the house.

Immediate remedy is to go out ans start turning off circuit breakers to find the one for the smoke detectors. It should be one breaker for all of them.

Then you clan remove them from the ceiling and clean them, which should be done annually anyway.

Expect to pay from $60. to $110. an hour to have an alarm company or electrician do this.


Clint
Summit Security

What you don't believe in GHOST?

You were right on with you co detector comment:)

Bob
Been there done that

who's this?
http://www.summitsecurity.com/home.html

[Calindy]

We have separate CO detectors, low, plugged in. Last year while burning in our wood stove our CO detector closest to the stove went off. Turns out we needed to clean our chimney! No home should be without CO detectors.
Three years ago my brother and his family (5 people) were saved by the CO detector, someone had "repaired" the furnace the wrong way. They had just got the detector as a gift 2 months before! When the Fire Dept came out and measured the amt of CO they said it was very close to killing them...