Kidde 10-Year Smoke Alarms

[Wade Garrett]

Anybody besides me having problems with a Kidde 10-Year Smoke Alarm- the circular one with the sealed-in lithium battery?

I've had three of them properly placed and mounted in my house for a good number of years now. But my experience has been that after three, four, maybe five years- they start spontaneously going off for no reason, perversely often at 2:00 AM.

I know the drill- twist it off the mounting plate, disable it via the screwdriver slot in the rear of the unit, call Kidde customer service and get a very pleasant lady who asks for the s/n and date of manufacture printed on the rear label then happily FedExes a new unit along with a return label for the defective one.

This has happened three or four times now- the most recent occurrence being last night!

I don't know if I'm ready to go round with them again on this or maybe I need to find a different smoke detector product...

[Marius Josipovic]

The Kidde PI2010 ionization and photoelectric hardwired interconnected are just as bad.  Last week I had one go off so I replaced the whole set of 4.  The damn things only last about 5 years.

I'll try the False Alert brand next time.

[gfretwell]

I think it is probably dust that kills them.

[Wade Garrett]

Just did that. I'll see what happens...

[micky]

Sorry, that's the CO detector.

For fire I have another plus I have the one that was installed in the house, 39 years ago. I test it with a match underneath it every few months and it seems to work fine.