Smoke alarms & humidity

[Seeb]

rate of rise detectors are great for kitchens and Laundry rooms were there is smoke or steam or in dusty places but you need at least 1 smoke detector on each floor,in each bedroom, and outside each bedroom area ( IBC ). but there are other types of of smoke detectors like photo type detectors that are less susceptible to moisture.

[lostboystoy]

The third night we stayed in our house in fern acres all 6 smoke alarms started going off, but wouldnt you know it, everytime I would fling myself from bed in a panic, they would stop. The fourth time they went off at 3am by now I am just pissed.....Had to get the ladder from the garage to get to the ceilings to tear apart everylast damn smoke detecter even after removing them from their hard wired electrical outlets, the damn things were still going off. Had to rip the nine volt battery out of each one of them. God hope we dont have a fire. But I dont know what else to do. if it wasnt a rental I would have them replaced but the owner doesnt have the money to fix the situation, I had just chalked it up to menhunues's, since they have been knocking on the doors and windows of our house, they seam to like the food I leave for them, since I started leaving offerings for them they don't disturb us much but they do like to mess with my dogs, especially my deaf border collie. go figure[8D]

setting my soul free....

[MarkP]

This might seem disjointed but please bear with me:

I have a steel shipping container with no roof, siding, or interior furnishings. Stuff gets really damp in there. Sometimes a 5 gallon water jug causes a puddle on the floor. Always a bag of fertilizer causes a puddle. I think this is due to the very poor insulating properties of the steel and the very low mass of everything.

While talking story with a friend about this she recounted a story of a newly built house that had humidity problems until all the furniture was moved in. Again it seems there is something about thermal mass controlling temperature swings. I think my experience with the water jug is due to it being the single most thermally massive object in a totally uninsulated container. On clear nights, it gets really cold in Eden Roc and the container acts as a radiator. The container and everything in it gets really cold and the water jug holds this cold long enough into the day when the air at ground level such as just after a rain and a little sun gets really humid.

It may be that insulation in the roof and an extra layer of sheet rock all round would smooth the temperature swings and hence the humidity swings out enough to reduce false alarms. I know that is a lot to do to stop false smoke alarms but some people do the double sheet rock thing just for thermal comfort and sound reduction so it might be worth considering as part of a larger project.

[Devany]

Well, Liz, you are not alone. Two of ours (we have 9 on different levels and in the garage) went off Sunday night... five different times (the same two). I do think it has to do with humidity, even if that night that they went off it may not have been humid... the humidty may work its way in and eventually cause problems. Ours finally stopped and did not come on again last night, which was actually more humid.
Of course when even one goes off, it is prudent to go around and check all of them and make sure nothing really is burning. As a fire chief's daughter, I have a nose for smoke that smells it before they even go off for genuine smoke reasons.

quote:

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Originally posted by Liz

Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!
They all went off again last night! Twice!! Then each time they'd stop all by themselves - weird. Thank goodness there were no guests here at the time.

Mike unplugged them all (since they weren't blinking their code that's supposed to let you know which one started all the racket) and took out the batteries and then after our hearts stopped racing, we got some more sleep. Not particularly humid this time (we've been closing up at night), no smoke, no aerosols, no vog, newish batteries...

So my question is this: Does anybody know of any brand of smoke detector that will last for at least a year WITHOUT going off for NO reason? In other words, is there a reliable brand that won't scare the bejeezees out of our guests and me?

aloha, Liz

"The best things in life aren't things."

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Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

www.eastbaypotters.com
www.myhawaiianhome.blogspot.com

[Liz]

Lots of interesting theories coming up... all worth exploring and many we have already thought of and looked into... keep 'em coming!

We're starting to think it's just the menehunes (and not the friendly Joey kind) playing tricks on us. I guess we ought to just leave a note for our guests about this exciting aspect of windward side living! ;-)


aloha, Liz

"The best things in life aren't things."