I have one of these photoelectric smoke detectors. The alarm sounds if too much air freshener or hair spray is used, if a candle/incense is burning, etc. Is it possible to temporarily disable this kind of detector? Can I just tape a plastic bag over it like with other smoke detectors?
You should never disable a smoke detector. If replacing it doesn’t solve the problem, then eliminate the problem.
Oh, yeah. You should never disable a smoke detector.
First off, I don’t recommend this…but, my suggestion would be a shower cap.
Get yourself a shower cap but put a string around it. If you just put a shower cap over it, it’ll be inconvenient to remove and you might not do it. Having a string hanging down (preferably with something bright on the end so you see it) will make it very easy for even the most lazy person to yank on it as they walk by. Just make sure you put the shower cap on in such way way that it doesn’t hook over the top or get snagged. It should be on just enough that a light tug of the string will pull it right off.
ETA, I just missed the part about the candle or incense. Please don’t disable a smoke detector that’s being set off by, ya know, smoke. I could understand being annoyed by one getting set off by hair spray, but incense. Burn the incense somewhere else.
Beyond that, consider a new, less sensitive smoke detector. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’re renting. I’d suggest calling your landlord and letting them know that it needs to be replaced since hair spray and air freshener is setting it off.
Also, keep your candle wicks trimmed so they put out less smoke, and stick to Yankee Candles and other higher end ones that put less soot into the air.
Can’t help with the incense though.
With a photoelectric detector, will covering it set it off by disrupting the laser or whatever it is?
All of that stuff should be contained inside, under the case. It wouldn’t know anything had changed.
But again, I would suggest calling your landlord (R.A.?) and letting them know hairspray is setting it off. Might be as simple as swapping it out.
That looks like a smoke detector connected to an Edwards panel? Are you in a apartment building with a fire panel?
I would talk to your buinding manager. The smoke detector (I learned never call them smokes) may be at fault. Ask them to check it out and posssably replace it.
I have never heard them called “smokes”. Is this a regionalism?
If it’s that specific one that you linked too, that seems to have “Twenty pre-alarm sensitivity values, set in 5% increments”, so it should be possible for your landlord (or maybe even you?) to adjust it to reduce the non-fire alarms.
Otherwise, ask the landlord to replace it with one of the ones that has a button on it to press to silence it when it is set off by a false alarm.
P.S. Some people would say that people who destroy our atmosphere and contribute to global warning by using excessive amounts of hair spray or air freshener deserve to be annoyed by alarms!
People who work on fire alarm panels, members of the fire department, stationary engineers, security in high rise buildings, and property managers will call them smokes.