WTH is wrong with our smoke alarms?

[StageLeft]

We have two in the house and one in the garage. 5 days ago or so the one in the garage went off. These are smoke alarms - not CO alarms. So anyway it went off for no reason I could tell. I ignored it. Later that evening one of the ones in the house kept going off. THe batteries in all are fine (they are power units with battery backup). However, when it was going off it didn't sound like standard smoke-going off sound (I checked with a match), but almost an echoey sound.

Anyway I disconnected that one in the house. Last night I hooked it up again at 8 pm. At 12:00 pm all 3 of these fvcking things started going off. Wtf did they do this for? My theories are:

1) They have receivers in them and transmitters to communicate with each other so that if one goes off they all go off. The receivers picked up on some out-of-house transmission that made them go off.
2) That one in the house I disconnected that time is faulty and is telling the others to go off when they shouldn't; perhaps they are all wired together?

Anyway I had to disconnect all three of them last night and then I soon decided to hook up the other one in the house (that had not been the one originally disconnected), and it's not gone off since.

Ideas?

 

[guyver01]

ghosts?

you didn't get smoke detectors... you got PKE-meters

 

[dman]

Is Mrs Skoorb smoking in the garage again?

I think you are correct in that one is probably defective. They do (at least ours do) have transmitters in them that cause them all to go off at the same time. My belief is that they do it through the powerline and it probably would not span homes... but I guess if you are on the same transformer as a neighbor it might be able to receive the signal?

We have about 10 in our house (+/- a few) and I was testing one out using the 'test' button, not a match, and it went off. Then I tested another and held the button in for a few seconds too long and almost lost my hearing. Fortunately, holding the test button in again turned them off.

You could probably call the fire department during normal hours (non emerg #) and ask if they have any ideas why it may have happened. They may not be able to fix the problem for you, but, can probably give you some suggestions.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: dman
Is Mrs Skoorb smoking in the garage again?

I think you are correct in that one is probably defective. They do (at least ours do) have transmitters in them that cause them all to go off at the same time. My belief is that they do it through the powerline and it probably would not span homes... but I guess if you are on the same transformer as a neighbor it might be able to receive the signal?

We have about 10 in our house (+/- a few) and I was testing one out using the 'test' button, not a match, and it went off. Then I tested another and held the button in for a few seconds too long and almost lost my hearing. Fortunately, holding the test button in again turned them off.

You could probably call the fire department during normal hours (non emerg #) and ask if they have any ideas why it may have happened. They may not be able to fix the problem for you, but, can probably give you some suggestions.

Yeah it's probably not radio transmitter, but rather through internal lines. I know that they are hooked up with three wires and hopefully the third is related to the transmission of signals and not a ground or something.

I wonder why this "faulty" (if it is) one makes a sound unlike the test button and also unlike the regular smoke sound? Perhaps it's a "I'm broken" sound, but nothing on the back mentions that.

 

[Savij]

Got a battery (other than the backup battery?) close to any one of them? Most detectors will go off if you've got enough ionized air going by them.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Savij
Got a battery (other than the backup battery?) close to any one of them? Most detectors will go off if you've got enough ionized air going by them.

Nope. The one that's been the big offender is up high away from everything. I'd originally thought that perhaps carberator cleaner had triggered the one in the garage (since I used it when I heard it first go off), but I've not used the stuff since, and it was never taken in the house.

 

[Sluggo]

In newer houses it is a requirement that all the smoke Detectors are hard wired together in a daisy chain fashion, and that if one goes off, they all go off. Our house has about 8 and they all went off once...the freekin dogs (and me) almost had a heart attack.

I think they communicate through the 120v wiring, but I can verify that later.

It could still be the batteries, I would buy all new batteries to start. The first models (maybe 5 years old now) of the new "communicating" smoke detectors had some pretty high failure rates, so you might just have a bad batch of them.

EDIT:

You should also check the wiring on them. Make sure the little pigtail is firmly plugged into the back of the dectector, and also check that all the wire nuts on the 120v are secure and that no wires have slipped out. When replacing batteries once upon a time, I pulled on the pigtail too hard, and the ground wire came out of the wire nut. That short in the wiring caused them all to go off.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: Sluggo
In newer houses it is a requirement that all the smoke Detectors are hard wired together in a daisy chain fashion, and that if one goes off, they all go off. Our house has about 8 and they all went off once...the freekin dogs (and me) almost had a heart attack.

I think they communicate through the 120V wiring, but I can verify that later.

It could still be the batteries, I would buy all new batteries to start. The first models (maybe 5 years old now) of the new "communicating" smoke detectors had some pretty high failure rates, so you might just have a bad batch of them.

I took out the battery and confirmed that the "faulty" one does have the low battery alarm, and that the battery was good.Unfortunately I lose the good battery and put in a new energizer, and still this issue! So I'm quite happy that it's not the battery, but I'm glad that you say they are definitely all chained together because now I can be fairly sure that this detector is broken and it's not all 3 going off because of some unseen smoke or something similar.

Do you know if these alarms are likely to have a "I'm broken" sound that is specific to such a problem? It definitely doesn't sound just like a regular detection of smoke.

As an aside I disconnected the thing from the power, pulled out the battery, and the little bastard kept on beeping every minute one little pathetic beep so I had to bury it in the couch

 

[Sluggo]

I had to put one in the trunk of the car one night when we had no 9v batteries, I could here the damn thing no matter what I did with it.

Ace hardware had some new battery they claimed to last 10 years in a smoke detector, I saw it in the Sunday ads a couple of weeks ago.

 

[RayH]

Might also try vacuuming the smoke detector to get out any dust or bugs.

 

[Fiveohhh]

Originally posted by: Sluggo
In newer houses it is a requirement that all the smoke Detectors are hard wired together in a daisy chain fashion, and that if one goes off, they all go off. Our house has about 8 and they all went off once...the freekin dogs (and me) almost had a heart attack.

I think they communicate through the 120v wiring, but I can verify that later.

It could still be the batteries, I would buy all new batteries to start. The first models (maybe 5 years old now) of the new "communicating" smoke detectors had some pretty high failure rates, so you might just have a bad batch of them.

EDIT:

You should also check the wiring on them. Make sure the little pigtail is firmly plugged into the back of the dectector, and also check that all the wire nuts on the 120v are secure and that no wires have slipped out. When replacing batteries once upon a time, I pulled on the pigtail too hard, and the ground wire came out of the wire nut. That short in the wiring caused them all to go off.

they are normally powered by 120, and there is a 3rd wire that interconnects them all and sends the signal when they go off

 

[rh71]

Yeah I'd use a 9v in them for a while if possible to see if these strange behaviors continue.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: rh71
Yeah I'd use a 9v in them for a while if possible to see if these strange behaviors continue.

THAT is a good idea, because if I disconnect the thing and use only the 9v then I can eliminate any intra-detector communication

 

[Doggiedog]

Do you notice they go off after you do the nasty?