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 Hi Dave-
I have 9 interconnected smoke detectors that are AC wired with battery backup. Last evening they all went off simultanoeusly (which is what they're supposed to do obviously). The only glitch was: no fire! While they were alarming I tried to reset each via the reset button, but to no avail -they kept on beeping. Ultimately I had to disconnect all 9!
Now, with fresh batteries, each time I hook one up again it goes back into alarm mode. Any ideas of what's going on? Presently I have them all disconnected with batts out.
Thanks
John
Answer Hello John, and thanks for your question.
Current codes do require that when one smoke detector sounds, all detectors sounds. I am puzzled by two things you describe:
1. The inability to reset the detectors with the reset switch.
2. Going into alarm when reconnecting to the circuit.
A couple of questions... 9 smoke detectors is a lot for a residential system (it is a residence, right?). Are they connected to a fire panel or a a combination security/fire panel? If so, we may need to take a look in that direction.
Second, send me the make and model numbers from one of the detectors so I can tell what we're looking at...
In the meantime, you might consider grabbing one or two battery-operated smoke detectors from any department or home improvement store, and using them for temporary protection while you sort out the other issues...
Sorry I can't help straightaway, but send my the information, and we'll see what we can do.
