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Smoke Detectors went off randomly??

While my wife and I were away this past weekend, our daughter was here at home. She called because the smoke detectors suddenly all went off in the house and then they suddenly stopped. After about 10 minutes or so they all came back on again. Our house was built in 2001 and all new construction homes were required to have smoke detectors hard wired in in all the bedrooms and additional ones one each floor. Now we have had the smoke detectors go off when something burned on the stove in the kitchen. I also had them go off once the very first winter in 2001 when we fired up the heater the first time as we moved into our home in June and didn't have the heater on until November that year.

So since I was out of state, after walking her through things to make sure that she was safe and the house wasn't on fire, I walked her through a list of a few things for her to look for. Being winter we did have the forced air central heater cycling in now and then mostly at night. I had her check the air filter to see if it was clogged and it was not. I had her open up the attic access to see if there was anything funky smelling up there as that is where our heater is and that was a negative as well. So we just scratched our heads and I told her to keep an eye on things and let me know if it happened again. Sure enough they went off again and we went back through the check list again with no answers. So I had her remove the smoke detectors from the ceiling as well as removing the batteries and set them aside since we were going to be home the next day. She turned the heater down so it wouldn't kick in. When I got home I went through and checked everything and still there was nothing wrong, so I reinstalled and tested all the smoke detectors and ran the heater for quite awhile and there has been no problem.

Now here is the really weird thing about all of this. The day before we left to go out of town (Thursday) One of my neighbors smoke detectors all went off randomly just like ours did. I talked to a friend from church online and he said that he had heard a few other folks talk about the same thing happening to them.

So is this just some freaky coincidence or is it sun spots or space aliens or what? It totally has me perplexed and a bit concerned.

Allen Worsham
Corona, CA

allenworsham@earthlink.net

http://www.awcreationsandwoodcrafts.com

'Graze in every man's field, but always give your own milk' J. Vernon McGee

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Site AdminPermalink Reply by John Moody on January 16, 2012 at 5:15pm

Wow, that is pretty strange. It almost sounds like a computer virus but they aren't connected to any network. I wonder if there is anyway to set them off by some type of radio signal?

If they are hard wired, is it possible that it would react to a drop in voltage?

John Moody
John Moody Woodworks
http://www.johnmoodywoodworks.com

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Site HostPermalink Reply by Ron Dudelston on January 16, 2012 at 5:20pm

Cheap cigars?

Ron Dudelston
Above and Beyond WoodWorks

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Master CarpenterPermalink Reply by Mike Dillen on January 16, 2012 at 5:21pm

I'd go with the Aliens theory! A lot depends on the type of detector. Some detectors are a photo cell device. If dust builds up on the cell it will refract the light and sets off the detector. Also to my knowledge with respect to my detectors if one goes off they all go off. I take a can of compressed air and blow it into each detector to clear the lens and that usually does the trick.

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Master CarpenterPermalink Reply by Allen Worsham on January 18, 2012 at 9:11am

I got the detectors reinstalled on Monday and have not had anything go off yet and we haven't burned the house down so that is a good thing. I got some good information from another site as well as here and it looks like it was most likely dust build up that set one off so the others followed suit as they operate on sound when another one goes off they go off. Also it was mentioned that it is recommended that you replace the detectors every 10 years as they do have a shelf life, so since some of them were installed when the house was built in 2001 we are at that time. But I did replace a couple of them over they years as well as adding in 3 more when we did our upstairs bonus room addition back in 2005 or 2006. So this week I will get the vacuum cleaner out and give them all a once over.

Thanks for the help guys!

Allen Worsham
Corona, CA

allenworsham@earthlink.net

http://www.awcreationsandwoodcrafts.com

'Graze in every man's field, but always give your own milk' J. Vernon McGee

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JourneymanPermalink Reply by Cliff on April 20, 2012 at 7:51pm

It is prolly the dwarfs Nasty critters.

Shortly after I installed my new OS on my PC I started hearing this loud metallic beeping that would come on at odd intervals. I was pretty sure it was something wrong with my PC. I would sit still and listen for the tone trying to make sure it was really coming from the thing.

It was so random that I couldn't time it.

It was really annoying

Finally I realized what it was. The battery in the smoke detector in the hall was going.

DOH~!!