quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

Had one of those go bad, it started wailing about 2am and would not stop, unplugging it of course no help, off to the garage and a 2 lb sledge eliminated the noise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tkY08MhfoU

quote:

Originally posted by FenderBender:
I'm replacing with sealed battery units. Why mess around with power and 9 volts?

I tried that and they all lasted less than 3 years before chirping and needing replacing. Never again. I will go out of my way to buy the regular battery ones that get a new battery every year.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Smoke detectors should be replaced at 10 years, and CO detectors should be replaced at 7 years. I pulled them all down, got the dates off of them. Ended up replacing a set last year.

All mine are interconnected, so its pretty hard to find the "one" that is low battery and chirping. Luckily, I havent had to do that in years as I always replace batteries yearly.

Yeah, our house is 10 years old in January. We have 9 smoke detectors in the house. I changed out the most inconvenient one to service in the great room with a 10-year detector. I was planning to change the other 8 to 10-year detectors as well, then read many bad reviews of Kidde’s 10-year detectors being plagued with false alarms; decided to replace those with detectors that took 2, AA batteries, and just continue to service them.

Changed out the four on the main floor—no problem. Changed out the four in the basement yesterday. About two hours later, the interconnected system is all going off. Not chirping, alarming. Right now all 4 of the basement alarms are down. I may mess with them a bit today, but of course, Kidde’s technical help is closed for the weekend. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid in not installing 10-year detectors.

These are all hard-wired detectors.

quick webz search - sounds like the prevailing opinion is stay away from kidde except for cost.

first alert / brk seems better received. there is a japanese brand i've never heard of - may look for that.

kidde sounds like part of the carrier family. i less inclined now to consider carrier for hvac replacement. trane, lennox, york, ???

I’m looking at First Alert right now. I didn’t realize I’d be designing a system. We have 7 hardwired, but none in the garage, the office where we’re putting a sleeper sofa, or downstairs where we might put another sleeper sofa.

The new ones will be interconnected and wireless, so I’ll have to buy one wired one that acts as a bridge between the wired and wireless ones. Not sure what to put in the garage, maybe just a carbon monoxide detector. I’ll probably be making a lot of sawdust in the garage.

I guess that since I bad mouthed Kidde, I should come back in and say that I reinstalled all the downstairs detectors and everything is working fine. No false alarms for a couple of days, all showing a green light. I have no idea what caused them all to sound over the weekend, but everything’s good. I don’t know if the decision to go with the alarms that need annual backup battery replacement was a good idea or not, but hey, it’s all working.

I don't think any kind of alarm should be in the garage, except perhaps a heat triggered fire alarm. Anything that detects smoke, CO, or particles is bound to have false alarms.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
quick webz search - sounds like the prevailing opinion is stay away from kidde except for cost.

first alert / brk seems better received. there is a japanese brand i've never heard of - may look for that.

kidde sounds like part of the carrier family. i less inclined now to consider carrier for hvac replacement. trane, lennox, york, ???

That's not been my experience. I've only ever used Kidde and they've always worked well with zero issues. Mine are not interconnected though, just the 10 year sealed battery units which seem well made. Along with Kidde CO detectors that take two AA batteries.

I went to Lowe's to pick up a set of new wired smoke detectors for my BIL who bought a house the previous owner never changed them in 24 years and was looking at the First Alert and didn't like them, they did not seem as well made or easy to install as the Kidde, so I went with Kidde for him too.

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
I don't think any kind of alarm should be in the garage, except perhaps a heat triggered fire alarm. Anything that detects smoke, CO, or particles is bound to have false alarms.

That’s what the smoke detector companies are saying. They are saying use a heat detector in the garage. I’m not sure a heat sensor would give me enough warning before the fire sprinklers let loose.

1 or 2 years ago, our detectors had expired. We have 7 total, wired/interconnected with battery backup. I replace the two in the bedrooms we use with combination smoke/CO detectors, and regular smokes for the rest. It was more cost effective to buy 2 3-packs of smokes than to get 5 individually, and I had hoped to add an interconnected one for my reloading workshop, but the wiring was going to be an issue (one day I may get a wild hair and start drilling holes to make that happen). Regardless, I was glad to have a spare as one of the smoke detectors started giving false alarms when the upstairs heat kicked on (no actual smoke, just smell from the heater strips for aux heat, checked the unit, its fine and nothing burned in the strips). Replaced with the spare, and no more false alarms. These are First-Alert/BRK detectors.