Middle of the night, unplanned fire drills.

[kdonnel]

Woke up last night at 2:11am to the smoke alarms going off.

My wife and I each started looking to see where there might be a fire, checking each floor and all the rooms in each floor. The smoke alarms went off for what felt like forever but was really only two minutes.

While she went to check on her parents in the basement, who never heard anything despite the three smoke alarms in the basement all blaring, I checked the rest of the home. If there ever is a real fire, we will have to ensure her parents get out since their hearing no longers allows them to hear the smoke alarms. We have eleven smoke detectors all wired together throughout the home including one in the their bedroom. Getting old can really mess with your hearing.

I remember this happened what feels like a few years ago but upon reflection is almost 8 years ago. I need to pull the smoke detectors down and look at their expiration date. They might have been old stock when I bought them at the very beginning of 2017.

That is when I learned that smoke detectors have a life span of 10 years before they need to be replaced. I had never lived somewhere for that many years. Now we are coming up on our 20th anniversary in this home so I guess I will be replacing them once again in the near future.

 

[jo-jo]

I see this

First Alert BRK 7020BSL Hardwired Hearing Impaired Smoke Detector with LED Strobe Light , white​

On amazon, would that help with parents?

Some years ago, we had a carbon monoxide one in the stairwell from the basement where oil heater is starts saying "get out of house"......I took the whole thing with me and it's still beeping.....I set a up little fan, and it's still beeping and talking.... after a few mins, took battery out and then realized, it had a 10 year life, but why the "get out of the house" warning?

 

[SueInBoston]

My boyfriend replaced all the smoke detectors in his 3family about 10 months ago with a popular brand sold at Home Depot (name begins with K) They kept having false alarms in the middle of the night, online research shows that it is a common issue. After multiple calls to the company, he was told that the device is not designed for humidity and that windows should be closed. Which makes no sense. BF switched to Google Nest smoke detectors.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

A few years ago our carbon monoxide alarm in our living room went off early in the morning. We all got up grumbling and complaining about it, but it wouldn't stop beeping so out of an abundance of caution we called the fire department and they came out to check. I forget what the problem was (might have been the heater), but sure enough we had carbon monoxide in the house and the firefighters told us that if we hadn't had the detector we likely would have died in our beds. We have them on every level of the house now.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I see this

First Alert BRK 7020BSL Hardwired Hearing Impaired Smoke Detector with LED Strobe Light , white​

On amazon, would that help with parents?

Some years ago, we had a carbon monoxide one in the stairwell from the basement where oil heater is starts saying "get out of house"......I took the whole thing with me and it's still beeping.....I set a up little fan, and it's still beeping and talking.... after a few mins, took battery out and then realized, it had a 10 year life, but why the "get out of the house" warning?

I was going to suggest similar. Bright strobe lighting should awaken most people.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We just had to replace all of our smoke detectors as they reached their 10 years from manufacturing date. One had been replaced a few years back already due to a malfunctioning one.

Unfortunately what we got has more varying dates than our prior ones that only varied by a month to 2 or so months but it is what it is.

Ours are auditory ones (although I know in the OP they mentioned hard of hearing individuals) that will say either FIRE or CARBON MONOXIDE. They are all hard wired together.

 

[starry_solo]

Hmm... I guess I should be replacing mine. Now to find an electrician...

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Some years ago, we had a carbon monoxide one in the stairwell from the basement where oil heater is starts saying "get out of house"......I took the whole thing with me and it's still beeping.....I set a up little fan, and it's still beeping and talking.... after a few mins, took battery out and then realized, it had a 10 year life, but why the "get out of the house" warning?

You should check to see if the carbon monoxide detector you have has levels of sensitivity. You should be able to find that information based on the model of yours. It can be a detector that needs to be replaced but it also has to do with levels it detects and for how long it detects it for.

 

[jo-jo]

You should check to see if the carbon monoxide detector you have has levels of sensitivity. You should be able to find that information based on the model of yours. It can be a detector that needs to be replaced but it also has to do with levels it detects and for how long it detects it for.

We had bought new ones. I have no idea about levels. I'll check. Thanks .

 

[tvguy]

Woke up last night at 2:11am to the smoke alarms going off.

My wife and I each started looking to see where there might be a fire, checking each floor and all the rooms in each floor. The smoke alarms went off for what felt like forever but was really only two minutes.

While she went to check on her parents in the basement, who never heard anything despite the three smoke alarms in the basement all blaring, I checked the rest of the home. If there ever is a real fire, we will have to ensure her parents get out since their hearing no longers allows them to hear the smoke alarms. We have eleven smoke detectors all wired together throughout the home including one in the their bedroom. Getting old can really mess with your hearing.

I remember this happened what feels like a few years ago but upon reflection is almost 8 years ago. I need to pull the smoke detectors down and look at their expiration date. They might have been old stock when I bought them at the very beginning of 2017.

That is when I learned that smoke detectors have a life span of 10 years before they need to be replaced. I had never lived somewhere for that many years. Now we are coming up on our 20th anniversary in this home so I guess I will be replacing them once again in the near future.

I didn't know about the 10 year expiration until I remodeled 11 years ago. My house was built in 1979 with a smoke detector hard wired into ac. It's still there, but I have a battery powered smoke detector right next to it. I bought that one in 1983 when we moved into the house. That one was so old it didn't even mention ever have to replace it, just the batteries. Now I have lifetime battery, 10 year smoke detectors and they do mention on them to replace them every 10 years. Another thing many folks don't know is that old ionization smoke detectors are considered hazardous waste. At least here, you can't just throw old ones in the trash. You have to take them to a special hazmat area at the dump. They take them for free, but you actually have to take them there.