Fire Alarms screaming but no fire?

[Never Enough Money]

Last evening every single fire alarm in my hose statred going off. However there was no fire. The wind had been blowing all day so there may have been some power interruptions, don't know. I hadn't changed the batteries in a long time but the they usually start chirping when the battery is weak. The breaker was NOT thrown.

Now two other potentially realted things. I have really sealed the house this fall to save energy.

Also, just recently, with the cold weather, we've begun using the gas fireplace. However, it seems to turn itself off a lot. I have to press the reset button to get it to turn on again.

My question: what caused the fire alarms to fire? I mention the other things because they might be related....I don't know.

BTW, I've been in the house 10 years and have never had a problem.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Fire alarm? You mean smoke detector of sort? If battery operated, I wouldn't wait until it chirps. Every year on my birth day I used to replace them just to be sure. Now in this house all smoke detectors, CO2 sensors are on AC power. If you sealed house real tight, you may be lacking fresh air in the house. Any provision for air exchange from now and then? And using FP, what kind? Maybe related. Tony

[Mark and Kim Smith]

When was the last time you cleaned them?

[Frank]

You better invest in a carbon monoxide detector.

[Never Enough Money]

Never cleaned them! Seems unlikely thoguh that all of them would get dirty at the same instant.

Mark and Kim Smith wrote:

[Rich Greenberg]

Only takes one dirty one. When one goes off, the interconnections set the others off also.

[John Hines]

Modern detectors are wired together, so they all go off at once.

This is so the whole house gets woken up, if there is a fire in one part of it.

[Joseph Meehan]

The newer ones connect together and when one goes off they all go off. Since it happened in the evening in now that it is cold, the most likely thing is a battery in one of them is getting low. Replace all the batteries and remember to do this every Christmas from now on.

BTW the advice to get a CO detector is great, if you have a fireplace or a fuel fired heating system. Likely you don't need that if you heat with electricity.

[mm]

Yes, there was.

Do they run on batteries or AC?

I don't really know, but neighbors of mine had the smoke alarm going off when "there was no fire" so they took the 110v detector to be repaired they said. While they had no detector (they were so stupid) t he clock in the stove burst into flames and burned out the whole kitchen, plus smoked the rest of the house.

You have something that's burning, however slowly.

One alarm could be broken but all of yours went off. Oh, are they wired together. I have 3 and they are all independent. Two battery and one AC, and one more AC soon to go in when I figure out where.

BTW, you can't have all on AC. You need a battery powered one in case the electric goes out. Something especially likely during a fire.

My CO detecter went off once and really might have saved my life. I think at the concentration the CO detector reported, it would have taken 48 or 72 hours to kill me, but I had plenty of time.. It's in the bedroom, and I woke up with a headache. Turned off the furnace and opened the windows but then I got cold and I was still sleepy. When the headache didn't get worse, I close the window most of the way and used the electric blanket for warmth. The flue was almost entirely full of soot.

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