Fire Alarm False Alarms

[ODB]

My dudes…who else struggles with false alarms from their wired-in fire alarms?? My First Alerts went off last night, but never said which one, never “voiced” the type of alarm, and once, stopped by itself. When I hit the Silence button on a subsequent alarm it said 0.0 ppm CO.

I have removed what I think is the culprit alarm, but what the hell gentlemen - why do these go off in the middle of the night?

FYI I have two additional, non-wired fire alarms and two additional, non-wired CO alarms and never a peep from them.

 

[CorbLand]

No help but the CO alarm reminded me of when I was first married. I bought a CO alarm for our apartment and plugged it in. Well it did what they all do when you plug them in and beeped. My wife looked me dead in the face and very seriously said "If that thing goes off in the middle of the night and wakes me up, I am going to be pissed." I didnt know how to respond to that to be honest.

 

[RS_Non-Res]

Check the expiry dates. The radioisotope emitters have a limited effective lifespan.

 

[william schmaltz]

I work from home and had one (CO) go off between my office and our kitchen/living about a month ago. I sprinted to the front door and got a couple lungs of the good stuff and then opened the back door to air the joint out. I went and got the portable unit we take camping/ice fishing and placed it next to me while I continued to work and the same alarm set off again a few hours later. I wasn’t about to mess around, especially with my family, so I called the non emergency number for fire department. They did their thing and it turns out the two year old unit had already gone bad. I felt really bad for taking up their time, but they repeatedly thanked me for calling and encouraged it in the future.

Glad it decided to crap out during the day and not 2 AM!

 

[MuleyFever]

I go on a lot of alarm calls. My favorites are when its 2am and they said its been going off all day but now they cant sleep. Thanks for waking us all up rather than calling 8 hours ago.

Anyway, the most common things are batteries, the unit is just expired or gone bad, and a spider or something in the unit. If your units are all tied together usually the one setting the system off will have a red light showing. If your CO goes off call dispatch or direct to the fire station. We never mind coming to check for CO. Its a killer.

 

[ODB]

Check the expiry dates. The radioisotope emitters have a limited effective lifespan.

These are photoelectric - build date of 2017. I just put the batteries in the suspected one and hit test and it started going and would. not. stop. Hit the silent button but still going.... had to pull the batteries...

 

[ODB]

I go on a lot of alarm calls. My favorites are when its 2am and they said its been going off all day but now they cant sleep. Thanks for waking us all up rather than calling 8 hours ago.

Anyway, the most common things are batteries, the unit is just expired or gone bad, and a spider or something in the unit. If your units are all tied together usually the one setting the system off will have a red light showing. If your CO goes off call dispatch. We never mind coming to check for CO. Its a killer.

Yeah it's maddening. The fact we have two additional smoke and CO detectors gives me confidence it's a wonky unit. So far today it's been quiet - even with the existing older combo unit downstairs.

When you read up on the complaints, it is amazing to see how copy/paste they are - especially the going off at 3am thing.. crazy.


And lemme add one other thing... on the advice of our furnace installers two years ago, we leave the fan on so the air circulates all day long. Last year my daughter had a mishap with the oven and burned the shit out of a tortilla - flames and smoke and all. The alarms never went off, why? Because there is a return in the small hallway between the kitchen and the smoke alarm. The smoke was being drawn into the system and blown throughout the house - it never hit the alarm. After I cleared the house of smoke, I immediately bought two more alarms and located them before the return.

I am surprised that has never come up on an inspection, etc.

 

[KsRancher]

Not any help with the OP's issue. But I am believer in those CO alarms. Growing up I never even heard of them. In 2014 I had a buddy that's a firefighter give me a CO alarm. The wife and I put it in the house we were renting. Bought our own house a year later and took it with us. Plugged it in and never gave it a thought. 10months later at 1:00am it starts going bonkers. I took it outside and it stopped. Brought it back inside and it almost instantly went bonkers. Did that a few times with the same results. Grabbed the kids and headed down to town for the night. Called the HVAC guy in the morning. He showed up with his tester. He said if that alarm wasn't in the house more than likely would have 5 dead bodies in the house. The heat exchanger plate burned/rusted thru and was putting the vent air in the duct work.

 

[5MilesBack]

When we bought our house 18 years ago, the previous owners told me that the house had a full alarm system but that they didn't have the service for it, so we'd have to activate it if we wanted that. We left it, and then one night I was making a fire in the fireplace insert and a big gust of wind blew a bunch of smoke into the room. The hard-wired alarm on the wall triggered, and the blaring deafening alarm that sounded was hidden just inside the air intake vent near the floor. While I was unscrewing the screws on the intake cover to disconnect the alarm, there was a loud pounding on the front door. It was the fire department. I was like "what the heck"? They said they got an alarm, and they rolled. I told them we weren't paying for that service, and they said "for safety, we always roll when we get an alarm". Oh well.

That was the only time our hard wired alarms sounded. Although the battery one in the kitchen used to go off every single time I'd open the hot oven.......sensitive little sensor. That one doesn't work at all anymore, because it cried wolf way too many times.

 

[Finch]

A few years back I researched and spent a few hundred bucks on new smoke alarms and CO detectors. My house was lacking in the amount of detectors but I feel pretty well covered now.

But yeah... for some reason, the damn things always chirp at like 3 AM. Then the fun game of pulling the wrong one off the wall to shut it up and you hear the dreaded chirp from somewhere else.

 

[tony]

Dust, dirt, bugs, batteries

Ran a CO call back when I was on the job, was so high it was knocking the guys down on the porch.
Learned real quick to always put a SCBA on after that. If you need it you need it now. If not you can take it off.

 

[11boo]

Mine threw off a couple nuisance chirps 30 minutes ago. Thus, I am posting here after dispatching the nuisance. Later, I’ll be going to the store and buying new ones all around. These are 7 years old FWIW.

 

[Wellsdw]

Co detectors generally are at end of life at 7 years. Sometime as early as 6, sometimes as long as 8-9 years. They are supposed to have an end of life chirp. However sometimes they just go into alarm at end of life. 20 years on the job, now and yes I have know idea why they only fail between 1am-4am. But it sucks, rode a call last week where one was in alarm laying in the street at 2am.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

My neighbor came over a few days ago with his new alarm he received for Christmas. He was trying to take it apart to see where the batteries go. I told him they no longer have batteries which need to be replace. He asked how they work without batteries????????????????????????????????????????. If everything else fails, try reading instructions.

 

[5MilesBack]

I told him they no longer have batteries which need to be replace. He asked how they work without batteries????????????????????????????????????????. If everything else fails, try reading instructions.

The new new Biden ones will probably come with a mini solar panel or a wind mill.

 

[hunterjmj]

Our kitchen one would go off all the time because of cooking and eventually had to replace it after it start going off randomly at 2am. I got the plug in CO detectors after our first child. I've heard to many stories to not have co detectors.