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I ripped all the smoke alarms out of our house because they would go off for no reason. I tried cleaning them out with canned air etc but it didn't help. Knowing that isn't safe, last time I was at Costco I bought a two pack of the first alert smoke alarms with built-in 10 year battery.
After about a week with the new smoke alarms, one of them starts going off for no reason. Here we go again. It only beeps (loudly) about 3-4 times but that is enough to ruin a night's sleep.
Unfortunately with the 10-year built-in battery, it cautions that once you disconnect it, it's permanent and the smoke alarm can never be reactivated.
Does anybody have any ideas? This never happened anywhere else I've lived and seems to be a Puna Problem. I asked a friend of mine about it and he said when he lived in Leilani he had the same issues and just lived without smoke alarms until he moved to Oahu.
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I think it is the humidity and dust collecting on the smoke sensor and making it go crazy.
Has happened everywhere I have lived in Hawaii that has been super humid (Nuuanu/Pali, and Palolo, Oahu, Makawao Maui, Kaumana Hilo). But has not happened in rentals or houses in the drier areas of the same valleys (Palolo, Alewa, or drier areas of Hilo).
Mauka Hilo-side
Mauka Hilo-side
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When our 2 hard-wired alarms started going off willy-nilly, we replaced them. One replacement was ok, but the 2nd one did the same as the one we'd removed. There was no getting it to stop. We have no alarm there now. It's the humidity; it completes the circuit.
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Yes, the humidity, along with heat soak the carbon particulate in smoke"dust", aka cooking odors and will cause them to false trip. PTA they haven't figured a bypass to, I guess. Is it by chance the one closest to kitchen or largest room in house?
Community begins with Aloha
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We have the same problem sometimes but always attributed it to small geckos crawling in there.
1 island 2 another
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"Is it by chance the one closest to kitchen or largest room in house?"
I tried moving it to another room. No dice. Whether or not we are cooking has nothing to do with the random nature of smoke alarms haunting us.
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vog... had similar in my place.
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Same here. Never did find one that works.
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The cheap detectors seem to last a year or two .
If one dies I just buy a new one. If any of them last more than a year I buy a new 9 volt battery .
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I've had pretty good luck with the Kidde smoke + CO detectors. They run about $50 each. They aren't the type that plugs into your house power, just batteries.
Buy them at Home Depot and if they go off for no reason, even once, take them back for exchange. I have four total and have lost practically no sleep for several years.
