AboutDave Neuweiler Expertise The design and application of burglary and fire systems for homes and businesses. Helping alarm owners understand how their system works. Helping to troubleshoot false alarm problems. Questions about monitoring issues.
Experience Over a quarter century in the industry. Experience in installation, service, and monitoring centers. Training manager for a national protective services company; director of education and training for a national trade organization for for alarm dealers.
Expert: Dave Neuweiler Date: 5/12/2008 Subject: Smoke Detector Alarm Won't Turn Off
Question Sorry - I had already sent in my question regarding our situation with our smoke detectors not turning off - I indicated a completely wrong model number. Our home is about 10 years old, has about 6+ smoke detectors in it, "Lifesaver" brand, model #1275. Today they all went off in response to some food we were cooking - no fire. We had to unplug them, but have since then found that if we try to plug them back in they go off again (despite the fact that there are no more "smells"). We have no panel that would have a reset button. Is there some master detector that we need to look for that may have a master reset? What can we do? We are going nuts! Thanks!
You'll find that there is no "reset" button on these smoke detectors, although there is a "hush" feature. Resetting the detector that went off should be a matter of removing the smoke.
It's pretty common for detectors to briefly alarm when they're connected to the power source, but this should stop in a moment.
Two other things... The 1275 detectors have a backup battery, and therefore should work even when disconnected from the base. I'm guessing that those batteries are dead, else you'd still have an alarm going off.
Finally, if your detectors are as old as the house, you should consider replacing them with new ones.
To summarize... while you have the detectors disconnected, clean them and replace the batteries as needed. Plug them back in one at a time. If there's one that's bad, you'll know it at that time.
I hope this helps, and please write again if you have follow-up questions.
