So the wife had to call the fire department last night...

[Shockwave]

then right after she called me. Heard all the smoke alarms going off. She had been having them chirp and go off for 3 or 4 seconds all night and was all pissed off. She checked the house, nothing was a burnin. Ends up one of the units was malfunctioning, and since there all daisy chained together when one fails they all sound.
Firemen got there, checked them all, found the bad one, unhooked and sweet silence returned. Funny thing is, during this whole ordeal my baby (1 year old) and son (3 years old) never even woke up!

Anyways, sure as hell glad it was a bad detector and not something else!!

 

[KingNothing]

She couldn't have unhooked them herself?

 

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by: KingNothing
She couldn't have unhooked them herself?

She wasnt sure what the problem was, nor why they were all going off. And she also didnt know which one to unhook since she didnt know how to tell if one was bad.
All in all, a learning experience. Also, I had thought they were in a closed loop (Which I think they are) and that if one was unhooked they would all go off. Seems thats not the case.

 

[NogginBoink]

There was a rather disturbing story on the local news here (Dallas) a few months ago.

One of the local stations did a story on how smoke alarms don't wake up kids. They took cameras into people's homes and set off the smoke alarm while kids were napping. Kids slept right through it.

They contacted the manufacturers of smoke detectors and the mfrs claimed that this was new news to them. I found the reporter who did the story but apparently a transcript of the story is not available.

EDIT: full story

School children are taught that smoke detectors are designed to give an early warning to a fire, to give you time to react, and time to escape. They are routinely put through drills so that they know how to respond in a fire emergency.

NBC 5's Deborah Ferguson says that the likelihood of a fire at school is low, but that it is more common to "happen at home, most likely at night, when the children are sleeping."

Keeping that in mind, NBC 5 took its cameras into the homes of several North Texas families.

All of the children were asked beforehand how they would respond in a fire emergency, and they all answered correctly, that they would "stop, drop and roll," escape out of the house and meet at the family's predetermined meeting point.

The Fire Drill

With Arlington firefighters on hand, and with parents' approval, we were ready to begin our fire drill, hoping the children could make it to the meeting point in under two minutes.

We used a non-toxic smoke to activate the smoke detectors in the homes, and waited to see what the children would do.

What happened next, no one expected.

During our fire drill, none of the children were even aware that the drill had started, sleeping soundly through the blaring alarm.

 

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink
There was a rather disturbing story on the local news here (Dallas) a few months ago.

One of the local stations did a story on how smoke alarms don't wake up kids. They took cameras into people's homes and set off the smoke alarm while kids were napping. Kids slept right through it.

They contacted the manufacturers of smoke detectors and the mfrs claimed that this was new news to them. I found the reporter who did the story but apparently a transcript of the story is not available.

EDIT: full story

Well, it surely is true. Our 7 year old woke up and came and found mom just like she is supposed to. But the young ones.... Like it never happened.
Course, the thing that just chapped my ass... Its all said and done, I had gotten home by then (I work nights) and gettin everything in order for bed (Turning off lights, TV etc etc). As I partially close the door to the baby's room, she wakes up. I'm like WTF?!

 

[KingNothing]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink
There was a rather disturbing story on the local news here (Dallas) a few months ago.

One of the local stations did a story on how smoke alarms don't wake up kids. They took cameras into people's homes and set off the smoke alarm while kids were napping. Kids slept right through it.

They contacted the manufacturers of smoke detectors and the mfrs claimed that this was new news to them. I found the reporter who did the story but apparently a transcript of the story is not available.

EDIT: full story

School children are taught that smoke detectors are designed to give an early warning to a fire, to give you time to react, and time to escape. They are routinely put through drills so that they know how to respond in a fire emergency.

NBC 5's Deborah Ferguson says that the likelihood of a fire at school is low, but that it is more common to "happen at home, most likely at night, when the children are sleeping."

Keeping that in mind, NBC 5 took its cameras into the homes of several North Texas families.

All of the children were asked beforehand how they would respond in a fire emergency, and they all answered correctly, that they would "stop, drop and roll," escape out of the house and meet at the family's predetermined meeting point.

The Fire Drill

With Arlington firefighters on hand, and with parents' approval, we were ready to begin our fire drill, hoping the children could make it to the meeting point in under two minutes.

We used a non-toxic smoke to activate the smoke detectors in the homes, and waited to see what the children would do.

What happened next, no one expected.

During our fire drill, none of the children were even aware that the drill had started, sleeping soundly through the blaring alarm.

Don't know what those or Shockwave's sound like, but I can't imagine anyone sleeping through the alarms in my dorm. Probably helps that mine is about two feet from my sleeping ear, though.

 

[Shockwave]

Imagine a high pitched car horn, then make it a bit louder. There screechin little bastards for sure. And to boot, one of them is in the babys room AND one in the room our son was sleeping in. Directly in the room they didnt wake up.
Dont know how to explain it, but its for sure true, kids dont wake up to them.

 

[KingNothing]

Ours varies its intensity, frequency, and sounds like a high-pitched foghorn. There is also a loud female voice that says "Exit the building" in the event of a building-wide alarm.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: Shockwave
Imagine a high pitched car horn, then make it a bit louder. There screechin little bastards for sure. And to boot, one of them is in the babys room AND one in the room our son was sleeping in. Directly in the room they didnt wake up.
Dont know how to explain it, but its for sure true, kids dont wake up to them.

Our smoke detector has a pulsating high pitch screeching siren. That would most likely wake us up but I'd prefer something similiar to our alarm clock. Loud and annoying, that definitely gets the job done.

How could anyone sleep through a fire alarm?

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: KingNothing
Ours varies its intensity, frequency, and sounds like a high-pitched foghorn. There is also a loud female voice that says "Exit the building" in the event of a building-wide alarm.

WTF is with that voice? I hated that thing @ ISU. 140 DB alarm, and I need a woman telling me something I already know. On top of it, it is a woman I can not have. Thanks.

 

[AlienCraft]

I hope your FD doesn't send you a bill for Non Emergency service....... Could happen here, I suppose.....
I once slept through a HOTEL fire alarm.....that was unnerving.

 

[dman]

I was doing the spring cleaning type stuff, and one of the tasks is to check the batts in the smoke detectors. So, I'm checking them all w/ the trusty 'ol voltmeter, cuz I'm too cheap to change them for no reason... (and they're only 1yr old anyway) and they are all good. One of them is a bit lower then all the others so I decided I'd change it.

So I get a new 9v, replace it, and about 2min later a low-batt alarm is going off. So, I have to go back up there and check it out, looks good, checked voltage of that battery and it's higher than the one I replaced, so it's not bad.

I removed it for a few, tried again, same thing. Tried old battery again, same thing. Now I'm t'd because you have to wait a few minutes before the alarm goes off. Then I thought I'd hit the test button--well it worked very well, so then I held the button in a little too long and all umpteen detectors in the house go off and I'm not sure how to stop it. Fortunately holding the button in again fixed it... wow that was loud.

In the end, I think I had to remove the battery and the dongle connector for the plug and reseat it all, and finally it worked... no more low battery alarm. I'm dreading having to check 'em again next year.

 

[Shockwave]

Well, I dont think we'll get a non emergency bill. I had thought about that though.

And yeah, I understand havin to change the batteries. My opinion of smoke detectors has wrnt WAY downhill. There cheap pieces of plastic sh1t IMO. I chased the low batt beep for about half an hour last night before I thought I had it solved.

At least they error on the side of caution, and rather then not sound at all just sound all the time, either due to low batt or failure.