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.
Question Dave,
Twice today our smoke detectors (hard wired) all went off for no reason. The first time the fire department came and shut off the power to the house trying to turn them off, with no luck. Now approx. 12 hours later they are all going off again. What can I do to make it stop?
Answer Hi Amy, and thanks for writing.
It sounds like you have smoke detectors connected to your monitored home security system. If this is true, then turning off power to the house won't help, because the security system has back-up batteries.
The main cause of false alarms for smoke detectors is a lack of maintenance -- cleaning. I'd try that first. A common method is to use a can of compressed air (you can get this at an office supply store) to blow out any dust that has accumulated inside the detector. Follow this by vacuuming the detectors as best you can.
If this does not cure the problem, then you may need help from a service provider.
Be sure to contact your monitoring center before doing this -- you may set off the alarm while you're cleaning.
