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Smoke Alarms?

I have five smoke alarms in my house connected to my power and they also each have 8 volt battery backup. Randomly all my smoke alarms will go off for about 5 seconds. Sometimes it happens several times a day and some times it will take a couple of weeks before it does it again. I did clean as much dust as I could from the housing and I change the batteries about once a year. The smoke alarms do go off when we accidently burn something in the oven, which means they work. Any Ideas on why they go off when there is no smoke? It is getting quite annoying, especially when they go off like 5 times a day. Thanks in advance.

Public Comments

  1. If they are all sounding at they same time it is most likely a power issue. Low voltage , power surge, temporary outage etc.
  2. one likely cause for this is are you running your A/C if so do you constently open the doors? if so that is the reason for the alarms sounding.
  3. Believe it or not, I have also seen smoke alarms trip because of steam.... W ehad one right outside our bathroom and it would go off all the time after taking a shower. What a pain.
  4. Check inside of each unit to see what the setting is for the alarm to go off, they might be set low so you are having these problems. Another thing to do is call your power company and tell them what is happening with the smoke alarms. They can check by putting a recording device on your power lines to your house. You might be lucky to have someone from the power comany come out and check the alarms and settings for you. Also check with your neighbors around you to see if they have the same problem with that type of smoke alarm. The only time you need to be concerned about batteries in smoke alarms is if you lost power for a long time, or if you had the type that wasn't connect to the main power supply. What would happen with the battery type only, when the battery power starts to get low it beeps often to indicate the battery power is low. The battery in your alarms are to maintain the power to the alarm in case you lose power all together. Save your money on the batteries for now, it has to be your power supply or the setting in the alarms.
  5. Since these are interconnected, I would recommend removing one unit from the circuit at a time for a 6 or 8 hour period and you may find a defective unit. You should know a bit about electricity so you can keep all of the other units active during this test. Good Luck ! ! !