Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The random smoke alarm

When I got home from class today, I walked in the back door to find my smoke alarm blaring. I didn't smell smoke, and looked around for a problem, and didn't find one. I grabbed the stool and pushed the button to make it be quiet. I had a message on my machine from the UPS man. He had been by to drop off a package, and heard the smoke alarm. He didn't see smoke, but checked in with my neighbor lady to have her keep an eye on the house. He then called the house to leave a message for me, letting me know the package was in the garage, and the smoke alarm was going off. I thought that was very nice of him to make sure everything was ok. I called him back to tell him we were fine, and to thank him for his thoughtfulness. Since then, the smoke alarm has gone off 5 times. I changed the battery, turned on fans, opened the door, and still it keeps going off. I know that the smoke alarm is only 5 years old, because we put it there when we moved in. So, does anyone know why it's possessed? Why is it tormenting me? What can I do beside rip it down and throw it away? Because yelling at it hasn't worked so far!

3 comments:

Tracie said...

You have a defective detector. A few things can cause this. First woudl be just bad luck from when it was manufactured. More than likely, however, is that it has gotten something (dust, grime, grit, grease, smoke, cobwebs) onto the sensor that triggers the alarm. It may be possible to clean it and have it work properly again. However, your best, and safest bet (since high quality detectors are very cheap these days) is to replace it. Todays detectors are very nice, with many having batteries designed to last 10 years without any need for service!!!

On a side note, you should have one detector for each room of your home, as a rule of thumb!!!

Tracie said...

Oh, if you hadn't figured it hout, this is Gordon talking, not Tracie

Snow Mommy said...

Thanks Gordon, I knew I should have called the expert!