# Resolved: Smoke alarm batteries never die during the daytime **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 23, 2011, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-smoke-alarm-batteries-never-die-during-the-daytime/568616 "2011-01-23T01:21:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![zwede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ac91a4/32.png) [@zwede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwede)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-smoke-alarm-batteries-never-die-during-the-daytime/568616/21 "2011-01-24T21:08:42Z")
The smoke detectors in my house have a nice feature: They are hardwired using a battery as backup. When the battery gets weak they’ll start beeping. If the battery is removed at this point they will stop beeping. Best feature ever, IMO, as they always start beeping at 2AM and I rarely have spare 9V batteries on hand. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-smoke-alarm-batteries-never-die-during-the-daytime/568616/22 "2011-01-24T22:12:22Z")
> [@Cluricaun](#): > > This seems as good a place as any to ask my Smoke Detector related question: … Ideally I’d like to move it out of the line of the heat from the oven but since it’s hard wired I’m waiting until we redo the lights in the kitchen first. So did we wear this one out and that’s why it beeps all the time and makes me want to smash it with a hammer into little tiny bits? that close to cooking area is bad for nuisance triggering. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-smoke-alarm-batteries-never-die-during-the-daytime/568616/23 "2011-01-24T23:27:04Z")
We change ours with daylight saving every year, it is a government run campaign and so I have never had batteries go flat on me. Change the time, change the batteries. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-smoke-alarm-batteries-never-die-during-the-daytime/568616/24 "2011-01-25T04:11:34Z")
> [@zwede](#): > > They are hardwired using a battery as backup. When the battery gets weak they’ll start beeping. If the battery is removed at this point they will stop beeping. Best feature ever, IMO, as they always start beeping at 2AM and I rarely have spare 9V batteries on hand. Why don’t mine do that? If you remove the battery from mine they still beep. Instead of a ‘low battery’ beep, it’s a ‘no battery’ beep. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-smoke-alarm-batteries-never-die-during-the-daytime/568616/25 "2011-01-25T09:02:14Z")
How does it beep without a battery? Or do you have wired detectors too? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2011, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-smoke-alarm-batteries-never-die-during-the-daytime/568616/26 "2011-01-25T11:09:05Z")
So I guess the whole “Check your alarm once a week” campaign used when I was in school didn’t work that well. Also, while the temperature in my house goes down at night, that’s because the central heating barely works. With normal heating, I thought the temperature was supposed to be fairly constant. So I question this as a reason that smoke detectors mostly fail at night. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-smoke-alarm-batteries-never-die-during-the-daytime/568616.md?page=1)