First alert smoke alarm question
 

My first caveat is my husband and I can't hang a picture without help. Look up un-handy and it is our picture.
One if our smoke detectors is chirping. Looking at the directions it appears the backup battery needs replacing. On the unit itself it says to turn off the power first. Does that mean from the breaker box in the garage? We can't find a power button on the unit so I must assume so. That's right. We got this old without ever replacing a battery in a smoke detector. Thanks!

Call 352-569-1011 - We have an amazing service in TV - the fire department will come to your home, free of charge, and change your batteries in all your smoke alarms, they will then test the system and make sure that everything is working correctly. You have to have brand new batteries for all smoke alarms and a ladder.

This service is free to residents - it's just another bonus for living in TV!:smiley:

Thank you. It Probably is easier for the fireman to replace the batteries than fix us after we fall off the ladder or electrocute ourselves or both.

Just take out the old battery and replace with a new one-no need to turn off the electricity. Do all the alarms at the same time or else expect to hear more chirping from other batteries within a couple of months.

My good looking husband replaced the battery in the noisy one. As suggested,we are going to change all of them. Knowing we didn't have to turn the power off at the breaker gave us the courage.

Joyce,
The FD has ladders if you don't. The advantage I found is that they will check the Manf. date on the detector and tell you if they should be replaced. They have a shelf life . Ace hardware has the replacements if you need them.
We just did all of ours for $100.

We are going to request the FP check out the units we have. I love this place. Our house is less than two years old, but doesn't mean it wasn't sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

The reason we ended up using the Fire Department was because the chirping started in the middle of the night and we could not stop it. A good friend told us to call the FD and they checked out every smoke alarm and found two that were faulty, so no matter what we did we would never have stopped the damned chirping. Also you get the added bonus of have a huge fire truck pull up outside your house which gets all the neighbors very excited!:icon_wink:

On a serious note - we apologized to the fire department for bothering them and they told us they would rather come out and climb the ladder rather than having us climb the ladder and maybe have an accident - plus we have raised ceilings so our smoke alarms are way up high. We do take a thank you offering from Publix Bakery round to the station afterwards, because they are not allowed to take a monetary contribution.

THAT is why my husband wouldn't let me call:1rotfl:

My question is: Why do smoke detectors always start chirping at 2 a.m.?

For the same reasons washers always break when you have a load of wet towels.

something about murphy and his law.................