I have 6 smoke detectors in our house that are wired together so that if one goes off, they all go off. That would be useful if there was an actual fire but they go off with alarming regularity. Turning on the fireplace, opening a really hot oven or even using a hot air popcorn popper. Is there anything that can be done about them? I’d just replace them all but I don’t know that the new ones wouldn’t behave the same way.
Can you tell us the make and model of smoke detector you have? It may help with troubleshooting.
I had a similar system and a similar problem with one of the detectors that was super sensitive. Like the nearby door was open and someone down the street was barbecuing sensitive. I replaced that unit and haven’t had a problem since. cross fingers
I have Kidde smoke detectors that are way too sensitive. Any cooking sets them off. I took the batteries out to make dinner, and forgot to put them back. Oh well.
A couple of years ago I replaced all of my aged-out detectors with new First Alert detectors. After getting several false alarms over the course of a year with no smoke whatsoever, I scrapped them all and bought new Kidde detectors. Haven’t had a problem since.
First Alert 9120B.
Googling says that they might be dirty but 2 of them are only about 6 months old. I took 2 of them down a couple of years ago because they were bothering me so much. When I eventually went to put them back up, I had lost them and ordered 2 replacements.
I just saw on Amazon that First Alert makes a less sensitive model for areas that tend to have false alarms so I ordered 3 of them. We’ll see.
As a troubleshooting measure I would disconnect all but one and see what happens. Since you said they all go off if one goes off the it may be one that is the problem.
So, leave the one closest to your kitchen on (where it seems most trouble comes from when cooking) and disconnect the rest. See if just that one goes off when making popcorn (or whatever seems likely to set them off). If it does so with ease, swap it with a different detector and see if that one also goes off with the same ease.
If that one seems normal connect a second and make more popcorn. Keep going until the problem shows itself.
The results of that test should tell you whether you have an overly sensitive detector or if that brand is unusually sensitive.
I know it is a pain in the arse but you do not want to live without those detectors and you do not want them going off at the slightest provocation.
Yes, and that’s why people, after being driven to distraction, will remove the batteries from smoke detectors. Unfortunately, that can be fatal if there is a bad fire. When reported on the news, you often hear that there were detectors, but they were “non-working”. It may be because they actually malfunctioned or the batteries went dead on their own but, more times than not, they were intentionally disabled because they were harassing their owners.
There are 2 different types of smoke detectors, Ionization and Photoelectric. Ionization alarms tend to be more sensitive and are more likely to go off for burnt food, but Photoelectic can be better at detecting slow smoldering fires. I replaced the two smoke detectors that would go off whenever I burned some food with the Photoelectric kind and have almost entirely eliminated the problem. I was convinced to try it by this Technology Connections video.
This would obviously be a pain in the ass, but if you’re interested
A problem they’re trying to “solve” (in NYState, anyway) by requiring smoke detectors to have batteries that can’t be removed.
I think you can, however, permanently break the smoke detector. I had one like that, anyway. (It’s been replaced.)
Rather than torture people by making it impossible to remove the batteries, wouldn’t a much better solution be to make them a little less sensitive? Then people wouldn’t feel the need to remove the batteries.
Sometimes it seems to be not a question of designed sensitivity, but of something having gone wrong with the smoke detector. The one I had to kill had been behaving properly for a year or so before it decided to insistently announce a fire that wasn’t there.
I refused to get hardwired ones for that reason. I am driven even crazier than most people by the noise they make, and if one’s going off and shouldn’t be I NEED to be able to get it out of the house. (After, of course, checking to make sure that it isn’t me and the cats who I need to get out of the house.)
I installed my 3 new interconnected “less sensitive” smoke detectors and made several batches of popcorn. No false alarms yet.
I just dealt with this a couple days ago in my apartment building. The smoke detector in the laundry room, which is across the hall from me, kept going off, so I unplugged it. I then sent a work order to the maintenance office, and admitted that I wouldn’t have done this if there hadn’t been a smoke detector in the hallway, and added that I felt it was more dangerous to leave it connected, because we could potentially ignore a REAL alarm.
Moreso that the shelf-life of the detector itself is about 10 years, so they’re putting permanent 10-year batteries in them, such that when the battery starts to die it’s time to replace the detector anyway.
As for hypersensitive detectors, if it’s being set off by cooking then that’s mostly a matter of location and the particular technology and brand at play. Not much to do but change it out for another. However, seemingly random actuations are most likely caused by dust or a (literal) bug in the unit. A quick blast of compressed air or close encounter with the vacuum cleaner usually takes care of that. The detector in the hall outside my apartment tends to go off randomly once or twice a year (usually in the middle of the night), and that’s always fixed it. I assume this is only an issue for photoelectric detectors, but I don’t know for sure.