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Help with smoke alarm

Robert2014

Hello all,

I have an ongoing issue with a smoke alarm (I think!) that I am looking for some help with. We have an ongoing chirping noise coming from somewhere in our sitting room for a number of months. It pings about every 30 seconds and sounds like a smoke alarm that needs a battery to be replaced. We have 3 smoke alarms connected in series and to the mains in the house with a battery backup. We replaced the battery to no avail. We took down the smoke alarm unit and still the noise occurs. We cannot say exactly where in the sitting room the noise is coming from. It continued for months now, far beyond what a dying battery would last.

Also the smoke alarms go off randomly every now and then over the last no. of weeks in a false alarm. Normally for around a minute but today it was for about 5 minutes. Not sure if it's related or not. No pattern to it that we can tell.

We have taken out the smoke alarms separately to see if we can identify a faulty one but the alarms have gone off when each one has been left out so cannot detect a pattern. There are holes in the ceiling above where the alarms are that are quite dustly. I've cleaned around them as much as I can, but since there is movement in the rooms above them, I wonder if they are just getting
dust again. The house was renovated in 2017 and this is the first time we've had the issue. Maybe there is some covering I can use to protect from dust?

We've had 2 electricians out, including the one that wired the smoke alarms originally. He thought that since it's a terraced house, maybe it was the house next door which is owned by an old lady. She said it wasn't and it was confirmed to us by her carer too.

He advised to trip the main switch and see if the noise still goes off, I haven't done that yet as we have a security house alarm and would that not go off if we trip the main switch?

We're at a loss as to the next step as we've had 2 electricians out, we cannot say for sure it's a smoke alarm problem although it sounds like it. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Happy Christmas too!

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Darando

House alarm should have a battery backup within its main unit, keypad will beep if mains is switched off but can be silenced by entering your code.

If you took the 3 alarms down and removed battery from each of them then they can't beep surely. Maybe try that for an hour and see if something still beeps in the area (obviously don't do this overnight or for a long time as you will have no smoke alarm detection).

Many alarms have a shelf life and date printed on them - are they past this date? Are they smoke or heat detectors? If heat detectors is there anything near by that could trigger them beyond their temperature (unlikely)

Do you have any other tech/cctv etc..

Hopefully the sparks/trades didn't leave something in the roof void that is now going flat

keithdub

It's the battery back up on your smoke alarms there is a low power in one best off change them all. They are the square 9v you need

antoinolachtnai

Are you certain it’s not coming from the neighboring house? I had this, because the house was empty and I could not get in touch with any keyholder. The battery can last much longer than a few months in my experience.

greasepalm

If battery was faulty can you press the test button to see any change in output.I could get chirping off alarm when battery was low and when standing near it could here it.No over loading of 13amp plugs in room?

Robert2014

Hi all,

Thanks for the advice so far. With the Christmas and lockdown with small children I haven't been able to follow up on this further. The chirping still happens although I can only hear it now when the kids go to bed! It's very noticeable when it's quiet so I think that if it were in our next door neighbour's house I would have to be very loud which would be noticeable, so I don't think that's it.

We removed the entire smoke alarm unit from the sitting room previously and there is still chirping. My fear is that there is something in the roof void that is now going flat, it will have to live with it, so be it!

Thankfully there has been no false alarms since before Christmas too, hopefully we can get out of lockdown so that I can follow up on it further and we don't have bigger worries to deal with!

10-10-20

That reminded me of a customer once, called up complaining that our computer system was chirping every 5 mins and needed it fixed.
We waited for 5 mins, it chirped and I told him that our systems don't make that noise and that it sounded like a fire-alarm.
After a bit of rummaging, he pulled a fire-alarm of of the back of the rack which had fallen off the wall, pulled the battery... and that was that.
I did laugh at the presumption of guilt on his part!

meercat

Had a similar issue with a customer who called me out for a chirping smoke alarm. He couldn’t find the problematic one. After much investigation I found a battery operated one in the attic that was installed by the previous homeowner.