Smoke alarm

I was baking cookies this morning and doing laundry. I had the Tacky White Tree turned on, the living room tree turned on, and I was blaring the CDs.

And the alarm sounded in the kitchen. I can't find any smoke, nothing feels warm. I went outside and didn't see any smoke. Everything seemed OK. Came back in the house and turned it off. Only to have it sound again in about ten minutes or so. Turned it off, went downstairs and checked the basement. Went back outside. Checked the walls. Everything is fine.  And about five minutes later, it came back on. I texted Rick and he said to unplug the Tacky White Tree. I turned the music off and unplugged both trees. Dryer seemed fine.

The darn alarm went off five times this morning. I finally said the heck with it and took the battery out. I can't find a thing wrong anywhere. It's not just a low beep to tell the battery is low either; it's a full-fledged alarm sound (We're talking "Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!" kind of thing here.) 

Rick said he'll check out the white tree when he gets home; maybe there's something wrong in there somewhere.

It's the first time this has ever happened (well, it went off one other time, but um, well, the oven was on fire that time, so that was understandable. It was my son's fault, not mine! He made a terrible mess in the oven and never cleaned it up and never bothered to tell me).

So I have no idea what the heck is going on. I turned the living room tree back on and am playing music again. I don't smell anything funky. I can't find anything. I walked around the house three times. Nothing.

No pictures yet? :'(

That's worrying. Does it also warn about high carbon monoxide levels?

No carbon monoxide warning.....we have electric heat, so there's no need.

Judy, the tree isn't decorated yet. We went to put the blue lights on it and they're not working. We had to order new ones and they won't be here until Saturday. I'll get pictures when the tree is done. Promise. 

Dust can set them off.  We had that happen with our bedroom alarm when we had been living here about a year.  It was a Saturday morning so no one was up yet.  DD was a baby.  DH grabbed her from her bed and ran all around the house with her; nothing was wrong.  I forget if it was here, on Facebook, or the Internet that we found that just being dusty can set it off.  I've been better about keeping them dusted off now.  I'm not sure if you can (or should?) use the cans of compressed air to gently dust off near the sensors.  I usually just go over it with the dust cloth or the swiffer wand one. 

Our bedroom alarm occasionally goes off for no apparent reason. The living room/dining room alarm sometimes goes off when I am toasting something.

Our smoke alarm in the hallway used to go off for no reason. I was coming home one morning from getting groceries. Started carrying groceries into the house and the smoke alarm was blaring away.

Rick thinks the alarm went off today because of the Tacky White Tree. He thinks that when he plugged one light line into another one, he inadvertently put some of the needles in the plug, too. That caused it to arc a bit. He went through the tree tonight and then he plugged it in. So far, everything seems to be fine now.

Good! Out of curiosity; how old is the detector itself? I wonder if those need replacing after a while.

MoochNNoodles said:

Good! Out of curiosity; how old is the detector itself? I wonder if those need replacing after a while.

Click to expand...

Smoke and CO2 dectors are typically replaced every 6 to 10 years. Check the brand of your detectors for the suggested replacement replacement time. Some of the newer models will beep in a specific pattern when it is time to replace the detector.

MoochNNoodles said:

Good! Out of curiosity; how old is the detector itself? I wonder if those need replacing after a while.

Click to expand...

It's about a year old, with a new battery put in just this past October. 

It's strange that such a new one was doing that. I've had it happen with older models.

They can detect 'fumes' too, no smoke present but the fumes from hot plastic, arcing pine needles , etc., so watch that. Sometimes it's too faint to notice. Just make sure that nothing, cords, etc. feel hot to the touch. Maybe your electric heat burned off some dust or something too. I know how you feel, we can't go anywhere right now because when our furnace kicks on SOMETIMES the fan never shuts off and it just blows cold air for hours while the temperature drops. We are replacing the thermostat today and hoping for the best. Good luck on yours!

Most times when I have the oven on the smoke alarm sounds off very loud.  I know it's because of the oven being on so I don't worry about it.  Once I turn the oven off the alarm goes off.  I hope Rick finds out whats triggering it.

We had a hard-wired smoke alarm that would go off every time we had a shower, so steam can do it, too. How annoying - I hope you figure it out. 

A few rules of thumb: Smoke rises, so mount smoke alarms on the ceiling or high on the wall. To avoid false alarms, don't mount ionization smoke alarms in the kitchen, where burnt toast might set them off, or near sources of steam such as a bathroom, laundry room, or sauna. Don't install CO units in the kitchen or near any cooking appliance, in the garage, or near the furnace or water heater. And avoid breezy areas-around fans, vents, air conditioners, doors, and open windows, where fresh air can cause a misleadingly low CO reading. Keep CO alarms out of direct sunlight.

That's kind of scary. We had a new smoke detector go off for no apparent reason for about 30 seconds. It was a full blown screech. To this day we don't know why. It stopped on its own.?????  

It was definitely the Tacky White Tree. Rick adjusted the plug and we've had no trouble since. 

Talking About smoke alarms i was woken up yesterday morning at 4.4G am by my neighbour knocking and ringing at the door. When I opened she said leave the building. Fire. I got whisky

Sorry. In the cage but couldn't get blighty. He was too scared to be caught. Got dressed took whisky and my bag and left the apartment. The fire was in the carpark near the gas thingys. Police, fire fighters, ambulances all there. Apparently there'd Been explosions and the police gping round telling us to leave the building.never heard a thing. Wasvdownstairs for ame hour and that was that. Ten cars were burnt up. I worried about blighty but he was Ok just scared. The police came round today asking if I'd seen anything.I told them I hadn't even heard anything. My neighbours woke me up. They seemed surprised. Wonder why.
that's my fire story.
Poor TWT. Gets blamed for everything. :-(