Possessed smoke alarm

[thinkerbell]

Our smoke detectors are less than 2 years old. They were put in when our house was completed June 2004. The have 9 volt batteries and are also hooked up to electricity so when the battery goes bad it chirps---even if you take the battery out. In Dec. two of them started chirping in the middle of the night. We got up and replaced the batteries. A couple of weeks later, one started chirping again-- in the middle of the night. We thought we had a bad battery so we replaced it again. Two nights later, it started chirping again-- in the middle of the night. It has been doing this for about 4 nights, never in the daytime. It stops by 8:00am. We can sleep with it chirping since it is at the other end of the house but if we happen to wake up we hear it. It really isn't that annoying but we are wondering WHY it only does it in the middle of the night. We will be getting a new one this weekend. Just wondering if anyone knows why it might be doing this--ONLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

 

[poohandwendy]

Do you have a programmable thermostat that is set to change temperature at certain times?

Just wondering if there is something turning on periodically that is setting off the warning signal...It definitely sounds like an electrical problem (either with the detectors themselves or the wiring)

 

[4greatboys]

LOL this brings back some funny memories of my mom. When I was a teen I had a smoke detector right outside my room. No battery it was hooked up to the electricity. It would often go off in the middle of the night. My mom used to get the broom and the beat the crap out of it till it stopped. Its one of my favorite memories of her fighting it out with the smoke detector

 

[disneymom3]

I don't know but if you figure it out, let me know. We have two that randomly go off in the middle of the night, but it is not good enough for that one to chirp, oh no!! They then set off all of the other alarms in the house. This goes over really well with our 3 children! We have replaced batteries, we have replaced the whole dang thing. The next step is for an electrician to come in and figure out what the deal is. Until we work that into the budget, the rooms that these ones are supposed to be located in have battery operated fire alarms.

 

[minnieandmickey]

Ours used to do that when it would get too cold in the house. I hated it.

 

[nick262]

LOL this brings back some funny memories of my mom. When I was a teen I had a smoke detector right outside my room. No battery it was hooked up to the electricity. It would often go off in the middle of the night. My mom used to get the broom and the beat the crap out of it till it stopped. Its one of my favorite memories of her fighting it out with the smoke detector

 

[EthansMom]

We had the same problem in our last house. It turns out that all of the smoke detectors in the house were wired to each other and that if any one of the smoke detectors had a low battery, it would/could/did start the other smoke detectors to random chirping (usually in the middle of the night -- at least, that's when we were home to hear it ). We finally learned that anytime ANY detector started chirping, we needed to replace ALL of the batteries in ALL of the smoke detectors. Solved the problem in our house.

 

[KatelynnsAuntie]

this reminds of the Friends episode where Phoebe had a fight with the smoke detector.

 

[Chris2597]

OMG....that is exactly what we had...Our house is less than 2 yrs old....All of the smoke detectors are wired under the same wire...whatever that means....they have battery back up....Same thing...never in the day time, only at night...they would go off...and never when dh was home....until a couple of weeks ago....It turns out that one of the detectors was defective....we initially changed all of the batteries out....still happened...finally dh was home when it happened and determined it was one detector...they were still under warranty....We ordered a new one and all has been well....knock on wood...heheheheheeheh. There is a test that the co. told dh to do to determine if one of the detectors was bad....He did it and sure enough..

 

[elgerber]

This happened to us too, several times in the last year or so (our house was built in 2002). We ended up replacing a couple of our smoke detectors, as cleaning them and changing the batteries wouldn't stop the chirping. So irritating at 2 am!!!

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

This reminds me of the smoke detectors we had in the last apt. They were SO sensitive that if you boiled water, it would set them off.

TOV

 

[Cass]

Maybe it does happen in the day too... but no one is home or you don't notice it because of the TV/kids/music/DIS