Smoke Alarm sounded for 15 sec for no reason

[Guest Reece]

Hello,

Yesterday at about 5:30pm my fire alarm in my upstairs bedroom went off. It’s the Kidde fire alarm. It went off for about 20 seconds, 3 times in a row but set off all the alarms in my house. It is hard wired with a battery back up so I took it down and I’m in the process of changing batteries but I’m just confused because it never chirped for low battery. I had all the windows in my house open so I’m wondering if something outside triggered it but I can’t understand what has made it go off.

 

Thanks

[green-foam 0]

Since the windows were open, and your smoke alarm has never gone off before, the probability is that a "pocket of smoke" was blown in and that is what the detector detected, it was doing its job.

If you are changing the batteries, its a good idea to write the date on them too.

[Guest Guest]

On 20/09/2018 at 08:57, Guest Madelline said:

Ours went off twice in the middle of the night for about 10 seconds each time. We blew on it and a freaking spider jumped out. So yeah, might want to see if there’s dust or spiders around it... 

Same here, 02:30 - 03:38 - 05:00 eventually I pulled all three heads and inspected them, spider by this time had dropped to the floor out of one of the units and was making a break for it.

[Guest Roxana]

We moved in an old house in a very remote area in New Hampshire and the 2 alarms when off at the same time in the middle of the night. Lasted about 20 sec and than it stopped by itself. teh alarm is "First Alert" smoke Nd carbon monoxide alarm with voice. I only heard

"evacuate"... the light button next to smoke was red for both of them. Terribly frightening. my 6 year old is crying...

I tested the alarm by pressing the test button and it went off again similarly for about 20 sec both upstairs and downstairs.  

 

Should i do something about this?  Should I be concerned? we moved in the house 2 days ago... this is the first time it happened. Any thoughts or advice are very much appreciated.  Thank you.

[green-foam 0]

Both would have sounded as they are interlinked.

Believe it or not, it's not uncommon for smoke alarms to false alarm (Although in theory they shouldn't, it does happen)

Sadly there is not possible to say "do xyz and you will be fine" as it depends on why one went off. (Being interlinked, one will cause the other to activate) But you should check the age of the detectors, they should be changed when they are 10 years old, also if they have standby batteries, how old are they? You should also clean them once a year (Vacuum cleaner and the crevice tool if you have)

[Guest Ketan Bharucha]

Hi, Smoke Detector went off around 1AM for 3 sec and then become normal. Same thing happened 3weeks ago as well. No other issue found. Annoying as when it happens, triggers all alarms. Each room has it own detector. Please suggest.   

[Guest Imnotl1lly]

OK. My fire alarm keeps going off. At first it was going well. But for 4 days it's been going off at MIDNIGHT. Yep, you heard that right. 

[Harry 0]

With it getting colder at night your backup battery is probably running low giving you a low battery warning. Or your alarm is getting too old (more than 10 years). 

Step 1: check the age of the alarm. You can find the date on the side or back of your smoke alarm. If it's older than 10 year, you need to replace.

Step 2: make sure the backup battery has enough power left

Step 3: if none of the above, vacuum the alarm thoroughly to get rid of spider webs etc

Step 4: if the above has not helped replace the alarm

Harry

[green-foam 0]

Is it a fire alarm or smoke alarm? (They are NOT the same)