As a REALTOR® showing houses, I often have to show
homes in an environment with chirping. Many vacant homes can be filled with an annoying
sound of a battery that needs to be replaced in a smoke alarm. No big deal. It
is an easy fix. But some homes, and these are often occupied, have missing
smoke alarms and that is another story all together.
I picture someone being woken up from a sound sleep at 2 AM
to a house full of shrieking alarms. With their hearts racing, the family jumps
from bed and has to decide whether to run outside in their PJ’s and wait for
the fire department to find the cause for the alarm or search to see if it is a
false alarm. In my experience, this situation never happens during the day. It’s
the middle of the night when the smoke alarms malfunction…Always! It’s like the
stupid things are programmed to go off as a defect only after a house has become dark
and quiet for 1-2 hours—It’s either that or they are possessed.
I speak from experience…Last night’s experience to be exact.
At 1:30 we got the unexpected and unwanted wake up call out of a sound sleep.
Usually we just have to find the Firex alarm with the blinking red light and
pull the battery. If the device is functioning properly, the house will go
quiet and we can replace the battery in the daylight. Last night, we pushed
every reset button and the 7 shrieking alarms didn’t stop. Now fully wide awake, I realized it was time
to pull the battery. Yea!! Silence!!
About 15 minutes later, resettled in bed and just about to
drift off…BAM! They ALL go off again! Now we are half deaf due to having 4
alarms on the bedroom level of our two-story home, all shrieking at once. We start thinking, is
something maybe burning in the attic or walls that we cannot see/smell? My
husband offers to check outside to see if there are flames shooting from the
roof (and get away from the noise) while I start unplugging the alarms. When I
got to the one with the red blinking light…silence! We still had two of the
hardwired devices plugged in; one on the main level and one in our bedroom. We
were able to go to sleep without further worry of an unseen threat. But after
about 30 minutes of ear piercing, mind jarring noise, it wasn’t easy.
We had been through this once before. With seven alarms
hardwired into our home, it is always an adventure to pinpoint a malfunction. We
even have spare alarms for the process now. But it is a job best done during
the day with a clear head.
We don’t just slam in new batteries and hope that would
resolve the problem. We have done that in the past but replacing the battery
won’t keep a defective alarm from an unwanted, heart-stopping wake up call.
Here’s our process for finding a malfunctioning smoke alarm:
1. Disconnect
all the alarms.
2. Remove
the battery of the first unit.
3. Push
the test button until all of the charge is drained.
4. Wait
a 10-15 seconds.
5. Install
a brand new battery.
6. Reconnect
the alarm to the ceiling.
7. Wait
an hour or so.
If all remains quiet, with an
exception of a double beep from the alarm noting it reset approximately 10
minutes after the install, we are good to move on to next smoke alarm.
I know it sounds like a pain in the neck to do it this way
but it is cheaper than replacing all alarms. (We have done that too!) It was
obvious last night that we had a defective alarm. That sound barrier shattering
noise that wouldn’t stop had us ready to take a hammer to every alarm….but
common sense prevailed. We know it is foolish not to have fire alarms in our
home so we won’t just leave them down or in disrepair. But we don’t want to end up with another
middle of the night wake up call either. This step by step process will keep us
safe and get the defective unit that triggers the long term shrieking out of
house for good!
As Daylight Saving Time ends today, it is the day to Change Your Clocks and Change Your
Batteries! And don’t forget to change the backup battery in the carbon monoxide
detector too.
