Sunday, October 14, 2018

The defective smoke alarm

Four years ago, tired of changing 9v batteries, I bought a set of smoke detectors with sealed lithium batteries guaranteed for 10 years. At which point you have to replace the entire unit. 

Yeah. Yeah.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.

A month ago, the smoke alarm at the top of the stairs went off in the middle of the day.  Thankfully,  it was not the usual middle of the night claxon.  Still startling.  And scared the dogs.

Anyway, the other 5 weren’t shrieking, I figured the unusually high humidity was affecting it. I unwired this one and set it on the bottom shelf of the desk to look at later. 

Then didn’t.

A few days ago – in the middle of the night – it went off again.  With a sealed unit, I couldn't rip out the battery. So I threw it in the freezer.  That shut it up.

Except last night I got up to go to the bathroom and heard a weird, quiet, repetitive beeping.  I tracked it down to the freezer. 

The smoke alarm was going off IN THE FREEZER. 

I  closed the freezer door and the sound was muffled enough not to be heard in the bedroom. I went back to sleep and forgot about it.

But just a few minutes ago, I heard more subtle beeping.  Yep, it was going off again! 

I took it out to the garage and smashed it with a sledge hammer. 

Never again will I buy units with sealed batteries!

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