Intermittent smoke alarm driving us bonkers

philstanbridge

philstanbridge

philstanbridge

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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West Coast of Scotland
Need some advice - we're in a rental property and a couple of months ago the estate agency fitted some wired smoke alarms. We've not had any issue until very recently. From time to time we have noticed that they beep, as if they are about to go off proper. But they don't ever get to that stage, it just beeps intermittently. There is also no smoke. There agency installed half a dozen in the house, and they are all wired apparently. Now the first time this happened we noticed that it appeared to be related to temperature within the house. If we switched the heating off the beeping would stop fairly quickly. So we put it down to some sort of over-sensitivity and left it at that.

Now it's just gone off again, and we don't have any heating on. Moreover we cannot contact anyone until the morning so I'm after some advice.

We are wondering if they are fused or something? Can we disable them temporarily?
 
What model are they?

I came across some that were doing something similar and finally tracked it down to the signal wire being poorly connected. Much to the owners relief :D.
 
peterwalkley said:
There is often a 9 volt battery in them as a backup. Ours beep when those need replacing.
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this I've got hard wired smoke alarms and they all have 9v batteries in them and start making an annoying beep noise when the batteries need replacing.

there's probably an arrow on the smoke alarm showing which direction it slides off and a small slit you need to jam a screw driver into in order to facilitate movement of the unit
 
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arknor said:
this I've got hard wired smoke alarms and they all have 9v batteries in them and start making an annoying beep noise when the batteries need replacing
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Same as mine at home too. Battery is there as a backup in case the power is out in event of a fire.

Change the battery.

/Salsa
 
Thanks for the replies, I've got a very heavily pregnant wife cursing here because we can't turn them off..

Okay, they are Ionisation model Ei 161 RC. They were brand new out of the box when they were installed.

I know nothing of a fire panel? If it is the backup battery where would it be located? The unit splits into two and I'm reluctant to go digging as there are live parts everywhere.
 
They seem to have decent capacitors on them as well, my wired ones kept beeping for a while even after I had taken them off and removed the battery :p

But yea, replace the battery to cure it
 
peterwalkley said:
There is often a 9 volt battery in them as a backup. Ours beep when those need replacing.
Click to expand...

philstanbridge said:
Thanks for the replies, I've got a very heavily pregnant wife cursing here because we can't turn them off..

Okay, they are Ionisation model Ei 161 RC. They were brand new out of the box when they were installed.

I know nothing of a fire panel? If it is the backup battery where would it be located? The unit splits into two and I'm reluctant to go digging as there are live parts everywhere.
Click to expand...

You have one of those **** ones with a built in rechargeable battery.
You need a new alarm :p
Just disconnect it temporarily if you don't want the annoying beeping
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If only you had one with a normal 9v battery you could have done the above , put a new battery in and put it back on.

GG buying one of the stupid ones where if the battery goes faulty you need a new alarm.

a 9v battery lasts for years in a smoke alarm, makes no sense to have a rechargeable you can't service and no doubt you paid more for the privilege of not buying a £1 battery every few years
 
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Okay I *appear* to have resolved it with your help of course ;)

There was a separate unit (presumably the fire panel thing) that contains a battery. This unit was hidden away from the others hence not seeing it. I discovered a removable battery and this was the culprit. Fingers crossed!
 
Oh, the dreaded beeping smoke alarm!

We moved into our new house 4 years ago now, first owners, brand new house. Last year we kept hearing a quiet beep. Thinking it was the alarms, we changed the batteries. Beep still there. I found myself sitting under them waiting for them to beep to determine which one it was. Still couldn't suss it.
Anyway... had a fault with the boiler system, had to change a valve in the airing cupboard. - I found a brand new smoke alarm in a protective cover behind the hot water tank. Bugged us for ages..
 
koooowweeee said:
It's the battery mine does it you will get used to it.
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Or you have a wife who gets fed up and buys the Cavius thermal heat detector which has a guaranteed 10 year battery life and is the size of a 50 pence piece. They're not cheap but they will stop your wife from moaning about the dead 9v chirping noise when your crappy non-brand battery gives up the ghost after 22 days (source: author's actual life event)

Also, it will go off if your house goes on fire which is a really neat plus point.
 
If I was to majorly renovate and rewire my house I'm going to wire in a full blown fire alarm system with smoke detectors and fire panel. :cool:
 
LeeUK said:
If I was to majorly renovate and rewire my house I'm going to wire in a full blown fire alarm system with smoke detectors and fire panel. :cool:
Click to expand...

Even wired fire alarms use batteries as a backup, there is basically no way to avoid the beeps.
 
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