Electronics

[151949]

Ours are hardwired with a battery backup- the battery is so they continue to work when there is a power outage. I never heard of them not having a battery backup.

[151949]

On 3/28/2014 Scotnovel said:

There isn't anything at all unusual about having a smoke detector hard wired to electricity a couple of mine are also wired to the security system for them to monitor. Most also have a battery as a backup. Those batteries are very difficult to replace and for some reason they always seem to start chirping in the middle of the night!

[DREAMON]

Yes they always seem to start chirping when we are sleeping at night or we are away from home and we walk in the door and it is chirping....

[Nana5]

Our smoke detectors are all hard wired to electricity with battery back up. Are you certain there's not a battery in there somewhere?

[Mmsfoxxie]

I'm at work right now but I'll check for a battery again when I get home. My hubby left this morning and won't be back til Sunday...ha, lucky him, I have to listen to this chirp, chirp...beep, beep. I really looked at the unit hard and there was no place for a battery to hide. Definitely going to google the manual. It's at least 10 yrs. old, though.

[RedTop]

We have several hard wired smoke and heat detectors throughout our house. Ours DO NOT have battery backup; when they start chirping, it is a sign they need to be replaced.

[geezerette]

Our smoke detectors are all on the same circuit breaker, along with one outlet in our living room. Several times over the past years they all start going off at the same time (what a racket--the dog and cat go nuts, it's literally ear splitting!) The only way to get them to stop is to turn off the circuit they're wired to. We have to keep it off for several hours sometimes before being able to turn it back on without them all screaming.

In every other house we've lived in all the smoke alarms had easily replaceable batteries and would start chirping when they needed to be replaced. These are the goofiest things we've ever seen.

You have my sympathy, Mmsfoxxie, that will drive you crazy!

[candyagain]

I had the same problem. Here is what I did:

1. Bought new manual smoke detectors (the best, Kidde).

2. After 20 years of the hard wired things chirping, going off when the guy next door lit up his indoor wood boiler, when the temperature went down below 10 degrees (usually at 4:30 am), when I opened the basement door (one was placed 16 feet up in the basement stairwell for some reason known only to the builder), when my daughter opened the bathroom door after a shower.....etc. I finally called an electrician and had the hard-wired smoke detectors disabled.

3. I then replaced them with the new smoke detectors.

Maybe you can also have the electrician repair something else or install a bathroom or ceiling fan to make it worth the home service charge.

They get worse with age.

Try it you'll like it.

Candy

[Lynnj]

Do you have a security system? That may be the reason that the phone is not working because hubby disconnected the fire detector. With my security system, the detector is hard wired, and plays into the overall security system which has connections to the phone line. Like others have already posted, mine also has battery backup in addition to being hard wired. It is a pain to get to the battery, even more of a pain to get the piece back on once the battery is replaced.

[Mmsfoxxie]

On 3/28/2014 Lynnj said: Do you have a security system? That may be the reason that the phone is not working because hubby disconnected the fire detector. With my security system, the detector is hard wired, and plays into the overall security system which has connections to the phone line. Like others have already posted, mine also has battery backup in addition to being hard wired. It is a pain to get to the battery, even more of a pain to get the piece back on once the battery is replaced.

Yes, we do have a security system....but I used it today and it seemed to be working as usual.

Thanks everyone for the responses.