Rude awakening
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Smoke detector on the second floor of our house went off at 5 this morning. My first thought was that a spider/spider web triggered it. I turned it off and used a hair dryer on cool to try to dislodge any debris and it's been fine. The thing that threw me for a loop was that the HVAC tech was here yesterday for the annual service and it actually got cold enough last night for the furnace to go on. But none of the other detectors went off and the unit isn't anywhere near its expiration date.
As long as I'm up early, let me take this opportunity to remind everyone to check their CO and smoke detectors going into the heating season....
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Just put new CO2 detectors on each floor. Old one was very old.
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Our fire alarms went off recently. They were installed about six months ago, maybe less, so a battery issue seemed unlikely, but we didn't smell any smoke. A search of the premises found that the culprit was on the third floor in Quirt's office, where nothing was amiss.
A couple of nights later, we had another alarm. Same place and same result. We alerted the contractor who said he'd send the electrician over. (He has not. It's been a couple of weeks. Welcome to our existence.)
The house is dusty from the renovations, although I've been vacuuming and dampmopping dusting and you'd think I'd get ahead of it sometime. The dog hangs out with Quirt all day most days, so I wondered if pet dander could be the issue. We saw some air purifiers at Costco and got two, one for his office and one for our bedroom.
No more alarms. And the allergies that have kept me miserable since late August got dramatically better overnight. I'm thinking of getting a couple more of those purifiers. Maybe I can totally knock out the postnasal drip and related miseries. I was beginning to think I was allergic to New York.
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One question: are the detectors that have activated strictly fire/smoke detectors or are they combined fire and carbon monoxide (CO) detectors? Unless your have separate detectors or your detectors alarm with different signals for fire and CO, I'd be concerned about the presence of CO since it is a colorless, odorless gas that can disable and kill without any obvious signs. Be careful out there.
Big Al
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Good points.
It is a combo unit. Three beeps signal a smoke problem and four beeps signal a CO problem. And it chirps when it has reached end of life.
This particular one doesn't have a specific display that shows the actual CO level. We used to have a CO-only unit that did, but have been going for the combo units for some time now. There are actually two units on our second floor where the bedrooms are, one at either end of the hallway. There are also the same model units on the first floor and in the basement where the hot water heater and furnace are.
It was just the one unit that beeped, it was three beeps (smoke), and it didn't beep again after I cleaned it and reset it. I figured we were OK. This isn't the first time a spider, or dust, has caused a false alarm.
