Colin Dunn
Supporting Actor
The past two nights, I have gotten false alarms from a smoke detector in my house. These detectors are ionizing detectors. They are all hard-wired to power and have the usual 9V battery backup.
When these false alarms happen, one detector (far away from my bedroom) goes off, but then a few seconds later all the others (including the one in my bedroom) join in. Because there are about 12 of them, it's next to impossible to figure out which one is responsible for the false alarms.
I tried cutting the power and taking out a battery to see if I could temporarily shut off the detectors, but the detector I tried must have had another backup power source as it started chirping (to indicate low / dead battery).
Any thoughts on what I should do to narrow down this problem? I'm planning to replace all the batteries tonight, but really won't be able to live with a false alarm jolting me awake every night. For safety and expense reasons I don't want to just tear out all the detectors, but I have to sleep somehow...
When these false alarms happen, one detector (far away from my bedroom) goes off, but then a few seconds later all the others (including the one in my bedroom) join in. Because there are about 12 of them, it's next to impossible to figure out which one is responsible for the false alarms.
I tried cutting the power and taking out a battery to see if I could temporarily shut off the detectors, but the detector I tried must have had another backup power source as it started chirping (to indicate low / dead battery).
Any thoughts on what I should do to narrow down this problem? I'm planning to replace all the batteries tonight, but really won't be able to live with a false alarm jolting me awake every night. For safety and expense reasons I don't want to just tear out all the detectors, but I have to sleep somehow...