Hi all, I like to heat only the rooms we spend time in during the winter with space heaters. Now that it's getting colder I have the problem of the household smoke detecters going off at night. It only happens in the colder months. Anyone know why this is?
Thanks, Rog
Bennett Price wrote in news:VApdf.26096$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com:
Put a 9V lithium battery in;they are much less affected by cold temps,and their life is WAY longer.For something important like a smoke detector,the extra cost would be trivial.
As indicated batteries are a good suspect. You also may want to check the specs to see what the operating temperature range is.
"during the winter with space heaters. "
If it aint the batteries like others have said, time to look at the vapors the space heaters are emitting.
Your smoke detectors are very badly confused and require psychiatric help. :)
Actually, the batteries are probably weak, and cold batteries deliver less power. Replace the batts.
If Batteries don't solve the problem consider this:
I've found that insects which come indoors when it starts to get cold (like Box eEder beetles and Ladybugs) can crawl into some smoke detectors and set them off.
A few shots of RAID around the outside of the smoke detectors usually gets rid of them for quite a while.
Jeff
The new battery advice is good.
You don't say if the alarms go off in the rooms where and when the space heaters are on, or where they are off, or where there aren't any.
Or what kinds of space heater you use.
I have wire coil space heaters that are at least as old as 1947. They work fine. But I can imagine that if dust from the summer, or any other dust, landed on the coil, as some of it must, it could be heated to the burning point, maybe, when the heater was on.
If this we were a common problem, I think it would say so in the smoke alarm instructions, but maybve your heaters are especially dusty or dirty, maybe because they haven't been used for a long time.
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.
could have more to do with closing of your windows and a dirty oven. try switching to photo electric.
How about it gets to cold and the detectors go thru metal contraction and cause direct short to contacts? Thereby setting off the detectors?
Dan
Usually a low battery makes it blip once in a while not false alarm, it could be a battery but it shouldn't be.
I get false alarms on cool mornings when the shower is used (30 ft away in MBR with bathroom door closed). Seems the detector cools to room temp overnight which is typically cool and the steam makes its way (not much either as it is not noticeable) to the photoelectric detector and condenses where it sets off the alarm. I either need to pull out the battery or hold it over an electric space heater to warm it up to make it stop (pressing the button only works for a minute).
My detector is only a few months old and has 3 way detector (ionization, photoelectric and CO) which is supposed to cut down on false alarms but it does not.
Is there a source of water vapor near the detector like a coffee maker, unvented gas space heater (!) or do you have steam radiators and the thermostat turns them on just before the false alarm.
If you think it might be this, use a detector with an ionization detector instead of photoelectric.
Also, smoke detectors have a 5-10 year life. Yours might just be too old.
Dust - try and vacum them out.
I 2nd that advice. Batteries get weaker as they get colder. Your batteries might be on the margin, and when they get colder, they get right on the line where the detector sends a low battery warning once in a while.
-john-
Moisture condensing.
This what I was TOLD to prevent such a problem you are having.
If you have ionizing types:
Solutions I was given.....change over to photo-electric if I want to use a POC (Products of Combustion) detector, or change over to a heat based detector(fixed/rate of rise, depending on your installation needs).
VERY IMPORTANT: Do not disable your current detectors, till you are ready to install replacements. Better to have an over sensitive detector than none.
I highly recommend you contact your fire company, they usually do a free fire safety audit, and might have someone on staff(or could recommend one) that is qualified to help you plan out your home's fire alarms.
hth,
tom @
replying to The Real Tom, katykat wrote: I had the fire chief in my town tell me it's because the room is warm and above the smoke detector is cold. My detectors are hard wired to the ceiling. He told me to unscrew them and let them hang when it's cold outside. I found if I run my ceiling fan on low this also helps.
This post is 11 years old. Either the OP has been burned or the batteries are really finally dead.
replying to Bennett Price, Berma wrote: I'm an electronics engineer, and have over the past year purchased several Kidde Model i9040 ionization smoke detectors. I was annoyed to find almost all of them, at one time or another, with fresh batteries, sound false "Low-Battery" alarms in middle of cold nights. I verified that the batteries are good, even when alarm is sounding, I can consistently measure more than 9 volts in every case - so it's not weak batteries, unless it maintains voltage but not enough current? There is no moisture issue, in fact winter nights here are cool. Inside temp that seems to be around 45-55F. What annoys me is this is not unusual for many parts of my home on coldest nights. I've used many brands of ionization detectors and never had this issue. Kidde needs to solve this, as it could result in death or injury when we have to disable one or more of them at night.
I've been trading emails with Kidde Customer Service over this past week. M y Combination Smoke CO alarm started chirping once every 60 seconds which is supposed to be a low battery alarm but it's also supposed to be followed by the "Low Battery" voice announcement. Mine didn't say a word. I tested the batt eries and they were fine. When I put them back in, the chirping stopped and hasn' t come back. That concerns me since the single chirp with no voice is not on the table of indications for that unit.
Kidde said that it sounds like it's a battery problem and wanted to know wh at brand I was using and what was the "sell by date".
I?m waiting to hear what they'll say now that I told them that they are the 10 year KIdde branded batteries that came with the unit when I bought if from their website in 2015. If it really is a battery problem, then it's *their* problem. If i t's not a battery problem then it's still their problem because the unit must be defective.
replying to Berma, Silvanus wrote: Thank you! We have an array of Kidde smoke detectors and since the temperature dropped here they are going off at five in the morning for no apparent reason. No moisture - except from two people breathing on the other side of a door. No insects coordinating their activity to that hour. No appliances on in the house. I think it is just one that is misbehaving and setting off the others. I may swop them around to see what happens...
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