I can just picture everyone watching this video with alarms blaring in their house thinking "Can you please stop talking and tell us what to do already." Because who's going to be sitting at a computer watching this video if their alarms aren't going off?
Chris Savage omg I have like 6 alarms in my house and literally right now a 5:00 in the fucking morning they're going off like crazy! and it's pissing me off 🙄
Woke up at 5:30am with all the alarms going off. No fire, no smoke, no steam. The vacuum ended up fixing the problem. You don't mention in the video that fire alarms all have a signal wire where they send the alarm to the other units. This means you have to unplug *all* of the alarms in the house, clean each one, test each one individually, then re-install them one at a time. Super helpful trick, the vacuum did the job.
@@TigerBand21 Kept silencing it and switched all batteries. Kept happening again and again. Since it's a wired system all of my alarms kept going off at once, waking neighbors. Mother gave me shit for getting frustrated, we argued, randomly stopped for a good while. Now it's fucked up after going off properly for real smoke yesterday. Swear to fucking god this noise makes me want to shoot myself
Greetings from Australia - my neighbour just came knocking on my door asking for help with her non-stopping smoke alarm; I tried your vacuum trick and it worked! Thanks!
Ok, I'm looking at this because I just had a strange experience. I had 3 of my 5 smoke detectors start going off and stopping within 10 seconds of each other and they are NOT hard-wired in... They stopped without vacuuming anything. No smoke, no fire, nothing. Someone want to explain that??
I need some help. The detectors after two years in a newish house( under 10 years) started going off in the middle of the night for no reason. Kept up every week or so until replaced. 6 months after the new ones are in it happens again. We switch to less sensitive ones and they go off again within about 8 months to a years. We have had 3 sets and two different styles to off in the middle of the night inexplicably. Any ideas besides the vacuum just in case that doesn't work?
smoke alarms are designed to to work within a range of humidity, we have an attic fan as well as air conditioning, and the when the alarms go off (we have photoelectric) almost 100% of the time (next to bugs getting in them) it is due to humidity, if it becomes such a nuisance then possibly look at getting new alarms, or get heat detectors which are less prone to humidity changes. but beware heat detectors are not as sensitive smoke is the first line of defense.
I live in the desert. Dry and dusty. So far vacuuming the smoke detectors seems to solve the problem. They are brand new so I assume they are more sensitive than the older ones I had. Thanks for the tip
We put new ones in and never cleaned them, just changed the batteries.They started going off, I saw this and we tried it and it worked! Thanks... here's the funny part of this story. My husband smokes and was smoking while he was holding it and it kept going off. He said it wasn't working and was getting upset, I walked into the room and shook my head...yep I had to tell him to put it out and low and behold it stopped.
Wait, did you vacuum brand new smoke detectors and it fixed it. I have the same issue. The smoke detectors were going off for no reason. Replaced all the smoke detectors with brand new. They are still going off. I started thinking about the wiring, but you are saying you vacuumed your smoke detectors and that fixed it?
For all the people who were saying "stupid" about vacuuming ... we consulted people from the building department along with a fire safety specialist, and the advice is household dust can confuse an alarm because it is particulate matter that can sometimes be read as residue from a fire. If you are getting false alarms, change batteries AND VACUUM THE ALARM.
In the video you talk about false alarms due to dust. One study showed that ionization alarms had 8 times higher rates of false alarms than photoelectric alarms. I think that if you replace your ionization alarms with photoelectric alarms you may notice fewer false alarms. Especially in the areas near a kitchen this difference is most likely.
I have experienced the opposite. We had almost zero false alarms with ionization detectors and more with photoelectric. Ionization seem to be more sensitive to moisture from bathrooms. Photoelectric seem to be more sensitive to dust.
In my Grandparents(deceased) house, the smoke alarm would go off at 3am,only when I was staying there. It was checked out for dust, low battery etc, and it was in perfect working order.
I have a two family with interconnected smokes. The two apartments are on their own systems. When I lived there I experienced this problem on two or three different occasions but the problem went away with no action on my part. After I moved out and had rented the apartment a few times I got complaints from the other tenants that the alarms were going off. I went back with the owners manuals for the smokes and tested them they way outlined in the manual. I received error messages and the manual suggested I replace the bad detector. One by one I replaced every smoke in the apartment. Now they are all less than 2 months old and the new tenant just called to tell me that it happened twice last night. Once ar 12am and once at 2am. They are first alert hard wired smoke/carbon detectors and don't need to be cleaned because they are brand new. What should I do next?
New fire alarm installed few days ago, keeps beeping and flashing red every few minutes for no reason, there is no dust or spiders inside so can anyone tell me what's going on?
My wife was dusting off something in laundry room she said which is next to the smoke alarm detector when it went off. Changed out battery and it still continued. She wanted to call the A/C company that installed it so I got on youtube to see what it could be. Saw your video. Left it beeping while I vacuumed . It stopped . Probably saved me $100.Great trouble shooting technique to leave it beeping and then vacuuming to prove that dust was the problem. Thanks , It worked for me . I'm going to subscribe to youtube channel now.
My First Alert hard wired smoke detectors keep going off despite vacuuming them all the time. This is getting to be a real problem. I rent an apartment in my house to vacationers, and the alarms go off quite often. I've had to refund money. Any other ideas? I've had my electrician here already. I'm considering ripping them out and installing just the battery type because obviously, First Alert can not make a reliable product. What good is a smoke detector that you have to constantly disarm? What good is a smoke detector that is triggered by a little dust? Ridiculous.
+Dale Lewinski You can certainly replace smoke detectors... you have to wire in a new mount for the new brand. Turn off power for the circuit in question but it then takes about 5 minutes of work for each detector. I been slowly replacing mine because they only have about a 10 year lifespan.
I've worked in the commercial/residential fire alarm industry to 20 years. There is no way that all of the smoke detectors could go into alarm condition at the same time due to dirt. The most likely cause was something common to all of the detectors.... a problem with the power supply.
dear Todd, your alarm will be wired to the main fusebox but possibly in conjuncion with one or several light fittings, but simply trip the fuse off t the main electrical panel or remove the fuse in the case of the screw in type. Try vacuuming as suggested in video or repllacing units.
Alarm Type: PhotoElectric versus Ionization? Possible other reasons: bug-spider, electrical noise, air conditioner moving air and dust, moisture - heat difference between attic and room.
mine just went off couple minutes ago woke me from a dead sleep. went off. for like 20 seconds or so then stopped, like triggered the test button. scared the crap outta me. no smoke or nothing. thinking ghost also. lol
I'm having a similar issue, two different Tyco PG 9936 Power G wireless detectors falsing in the middle of the night in different bedrooms, different dates, months apart. Both had ceiling fans running on low nearby but 3 feet away. I bought this home a year ago and I suspect airborne dust is the culprit despite a clean environment. The house has new paint and carpet months ago, I dusted everything and replaced my air filters with Merv 13 4 inch deep filters a second time now. The lower Merv ratings the lower the filter particle removal and increase of air borne particles. I will relocate my detectors further away from the return air vents and ceiling fan to avoid airborne particles, I replaced the non functioning electronic filters in the hvac system last December, perhaps this info will assist you in your personal diagnosis. Reply
Ours was going off for no reason. Ours usually has the cover flipped open for the occasional smoke from the stove so we can pop the battery. It wasn't dust from the grills. I think it is something on the sensor itself. I took the board out and blew it with air. I will see if that does the trick... Thanks for the video though.
Let me throw this at you...we have the same typical smoke alarms that you discussed here, integrated throughout our house. The only problem we have that isnt smoke or fire related is that they will all sound after we shower. It seems that the warm moist air that comes from the bathroom when opening the door after a shower will set all the smoke alarms off. About 1 minute later, they all shut off and go silent once again. Why does and why would a shower set off a smoke alarm? I've lived many places in my life and this is the first house it has happened.
Thank you for your video. We were doing this at 3:00 in the morning. Husband was running around looking for a fire while I searched online. This worked.
Our Kidde alarms are 1.5 years old and have gone off several times, ALWAYS in the middle of the night. They are deafening! MUCH louder than necessary. They were vacuumed thoroughly about 2 months ago, and they went off again last night. I'm ready to crush them with a sledgehammer.
Our fire alarm has been triggered so many times recently I’ve lost track. It tells us it detects smoke and prepare as the alarm may sound. Sometimes it sets off at the most random of times, like 3am, and let me tell you how terrifying that is. I literally fear going to sleep now 😂 we’ve cleaned it by hoovering it, so it can’t be dust. There’s no humidity as I live in England and it’s freezing. No insects are inside as we’ve checked. Do you think it could just an inconveniently faulty batch of fire alarms? We have total of three in the house. Every single one we have has gone off at one stage, but the one upstairs seems to go off the most. There’s no draft upstairs. It’s so bizarre, we can’t pinpoint what it could be. I just don’t want it to keep crying wolf and then when there’s an actual emergency we just brush it off. It’s frustrating. :/
You said there are 10 detectors in your house and you vacuumed 5 before they stopped sounding. This means you didn't know how to locate the initiating detector first. This is simple actually. Just look at the lights on the alarm. The one that is different than the others is the initiator. The ones that are the same light pattern are sounding because of the initiator and not because of the dust in itself. Therefore you only need to vacuum one alarm to resolve the issue.
Do they pay you by the number of words you say? Keep in mind that most of us who stumble on this video have a blaring smoke alarm going off over our heads.
My nest "smart" alarm woke me up at 5am, I threw it and shoved it into a cereal container filled with fiber glass and the lid because it came back every 5 minutes and it looks like it's working now
We have a 10 year old home, with approximately 12 hard wired detectors. On the second floor we have a problem with the detectors going off (during the winter), when I remove the detectors there is a considerable amount of water dripping from the junction box, my guess is condensation is built up (this has happened the last two winters - Very cold Chicago winters btw) It has also caused the ceiling fan/light combos to not work properly (those on the second floor - same attic). So the dust is not the issue but more of a condensation problem? Any thoughts on how to solve this?
I don’t understand why the alarm that was triggered doesn’t identify itself and require a reset to put it back online. I hate trying to guess which one is causing problems.
I have an area in my yard where water runs off my property to a retention area. When we have a storm we have excessive water in the run off area as it extends further into my yard and will get as high as2-3 ft
I have a First Alert smoke/fire/battery operated detector, which is mounted more or less in the near center of my master bedroom. The unit was installed when I first moved into the condo around 1986. Aside from the bi-yearly change of the square 9V battery (usually use Lithium or Alkaline to extend changes between battery death) .. the unit has been silent up till recently. The trigger seems to be taking a shower in the master bathroom where the door opens up into the bedroom. I have a heat-pump heating and cooling with blower system in the home, and never has the smoke detector gone off due to taking a shower, up until a few weeks ago. I normally have both doors from the bathroom open (one into the bedroom and the other into the hallway for second bedroom access) .. and the detector was always silent during showers, even at the most hot or steamiest, which I normally do not take. Now even a warm shower sets it off. Any suggestions?
An important note for latching alarms - you must press the test button after the alarm condition is resolved. In this case, this means after vacuuming causes the alarm to stop, you must press the test button to clear the latched alarm. How do you know if you have a latching alarm? Simple - look to see if the light pattern is different on the alarm that had dust as compared to the alarm that didn't sense dust. If it's different press the test button. Then look again and you will see that the light patterns are the same.
Okay guys... so a month ago it began. Fire dept said to replace the batteries. we did.. still happened.. i dont know what miracle i performed but i took it from the ceiling disconnected too and removed the battery and held the button for about 30 sec. Never went off till now It just started today keep in mind with new batteries so im about to perform the vaccum cleaning solution... my question is.. what could it be if it continues to do so after the new batteries, removing and unplugging it and now the vaccum? Thanks.
The one in my room is the main, according to the Fire Dept. i tried your vac teq and it helped... after a few hours it turned on again so this time i hooked up the other end where it blows out the air with a bit of pressure and dust did fly out... hasnt bugged since. thanks for that. i do have the window open a lot and the fan on in my room so it does get really dusty so makes sense
What about humidity? Can that make them go off? Seems like we have this problem only durring the warmer months.Or is it just the fact that fans are blowing around dust more???
My smoke detectors just did this at 2:30 this morning! They would eventually stop, then start again 5 minutes later. Right now, they're quiet. I'll vacuum them later today for sure.
I am in a apartment. The alarm is right in my hallway near the oven/stove and bathroom. It goes off every time I open my oven. I did have my balcony door open, so it went off after a minute. I do use my exhaust fan when cooking on the stove. Do I need it on for the oven as well?
Mine did this yesterday. The one on my main floor started first then they all went off and the second time the alarms went off it was the second floor smoke detector that started first then the rest kicked in. But if you don't hear which smoke detector goes off first then yes you wouldn't know But I think that is a great idea if it would indicate which alarm went off first. That's a good idea in case of a real fire!
I vacuumed my all my smoke detectors after removing them from the ceiling. This was after being woken up at 12am. I put them all back and they have been working fine. Again today at 11:30pm (always late at night) they arw wailing again. The back up batterys are dead, maybe time to replace them
In an emergency, the handy guys will sit you down for a chat and explain what to do. Bring popcorn, ready for when useful information starts happening.
@@TheHandyguys The vacuuming is total BS. For years for me it was always batteries till now. This time batteries did not resolve the problem, certainly vacuuming was a ridiculous try. So after two sleepless nights of beeping and after 15 years decided to replace all 5 detectors. Lucky for me the same brand I have were on sale for about $10 , but until I receive those I removed all detectors so I can sleep.
My hard-wired smoke alarm last night (boy, did I ever not get any sleep!) beeped once every half hour a few times starting just as I was falling asleep, of course...then once every hour or so, until I smacked it with a mop. Just one beep each time, but SUCH an annoying noise! Am guessing it is time to replace the whole thing but have no idea how long it has been in this apartment. Would you recommend this, or something else?
You have the answer at the 00:00:40 second mark. The rest is talk! BTW, my SO claims that spiders getting in there (and we have a few around the house) could cause the alarm to trip.
I’m looking for one for Wheelock fire alarms, can u do one? My panel keeps making these crackling noises and the alarm always goes off, and my pull stations and my panels are in my room, and the alarms are in the hallways. I feel like the panel is short fusing, can you help?
Ours went off 3 times last night starting at 2:30am. The previous night they went off a couple of times. Thus why I found your video! They are all interconnected and say FIRE FIRE FIRE. It freaks the dogs, cats & kids out. Then my @ss is grumpy the next day because I didn't get any sleep which puts my wife in a grumpy mood. So I replaced the batteries in all of them thinking I had fixed the issue and just about 30 min ago we got the FIRE FIRE FIRE alarm. Of course there is no documentation that came with our house how these things work or are wired together etc. So I plugged in my portable compressor and blew those MFers out. Hopefully that fixed it. Goodnight!!
This same thing is happening to me...tried vaccuming it and didnt work. Tried changing the batteries and still nothing. Help please this is really annoying and always seems to go off when we are fast asleep.
This happened to me two days ago. We couldnt turn it off until we removed the whole thing from the wall. Real pain XD. Wanna upload the video I recorded of the thing soon.
I can just picture everyone watching this video with alarms blaring in their house thinking "Can you please stop talking and tell us what to do already." Because who's going to be sitting at a computer watching this video if their alarms aren't going off?
Chris Savage omg I have like 6 alarms in my house and literally right now a 5:00 in the fucking morning they're going off like crazy! and it's pissing me off 🙄
Ahahahahaha
ROYALTY _BEAUTI ooooo girl, we have three, i dont know if i could stand 6 all going off! May god be with your eardrums
Thanks this seems to have worked.
Yep!. I even covered my damn ears again when I heard it going off in the video. I'm tempted to just blast those damn smoke alarms with my shotgun. 😤
I'd like to save you 5:54 minutes by letting you know that the tip was to vacuum the smoke alarms because of possible dust.
thx
😂
Thank you. These lot going to gas themselves out with all this talk
👑👑 For you
@@Nopants4us No Shit. Thank you.
Guys, come on, you have to be better prepared for these segments, 6 minutes to tell me to vacuum the dust out, the rest of it was like pulling teeth.
Woke up at 5:30am with all the alarms going off. No fire, no smoke, no steam. The vacuum ended up fixing the problem. You don't mention in the video that fire alarms all have a signal wire where they send the alarm to the other units. This means you have to unplug *all* of the alarms in the house, clean each one, test each one individually, then re-install them one at a time. Super helpful trick, the vacuum did the job.
To those wondering, all you have to do is vacuum your smoke detector to remove dust. There is nothing else to this video.
Well it is 4 AM WHOLE HOUSE GOING OFF. THESE GUYS SHOOTING THE BREEZE aagghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
as my alarm is going
Same here lol
Mine went off 3 hrs ago at 4:10 AND KEPT GOING OFF AFTER I SILENCED THEM 4 MORE TIMES!
3 hrs later? Randomly went off again.
Cyber Justiciar what did you end up doing? Smash it?
@@TigerBand21 Kept silencing it and switched all batteries. Kept happening again and again. Since it's a wired system all of my alarms kept going off at once, waking neighbors.
Mother gave me shit for getting frustrated, we argued, randomly stopped for a good while.
Now it's fucked up after going off properly for real smoke yesterday. Swear to fucking god this noise makes me want to shoot myself
Greetings from Australia - my neighbour just came knocking on my door asking for help with her non-stopping smoke alarm; I tried your vacuum trick and it worked! Thanks!
Is there an ETA for your Point ???
Thank you!
Christmas get to the point
Seriously I'm so pissed right now
Ok, I'm looking at this because I just had a strange experience. I had 3 of my 5 smoke detectors start going off and stopping within 10 seconds of each other and they are NOT hard-wired in... They stopped without vacuuming anything. No smoke, no fire, nothing. Someone want to explain that??
I need some help. The detectors after two years in a newish house( under 10 years) started going off in the middle of the night for no reason. Kept up every week or so until replaced. 6 months after the new ones are in it happens again. We switch to less sensitive ones and they go off again within about 8 months to a years. We have had 3 sets and two different styles to off in the middle of the night inexplicably. Any ideas besides the vacuum just in case that doesn't work?
smoke alarms are designed to to work within a range of humidity, we have an attic fan as well as air conditioning, and the when the alarms go off (we have photoelectric) almost 100% of the time (next to bugs getting in them) it is due to humidity, if it becomes such a nuisance then possibly look at getting new alarms, or get heat detectors which are less prone to humidity changes. but beware heat detectors are not as sensitive smoke is the first line of defense.
Step 1: detach smoke alarm
Step 2: cut connecting wires
You’re welcome.
I live in the desert. Dry and dusty. So far vacuuming the smoke detectors seems to solve the problem. They are brand new so I assume they are more sensitive than the older ones I had. Thanks for the tip
We put new ones in and never cleaned them, just changed the batteries.They started going off, I saw this and we tried it and it worked! Thanks... here's the funny part of this story. My husband smokes and was smoking while he was holding it and it kept going off. He said it wasn't working and was getting upset, I walked into the room and shook my head...yep I had to tell him to put it out and low and behold it stopped.
Wait, did you vacuum brand new smoke detectors and it fixed it. I have the same issue. The smoke detectors were going off for no reason. Replaced all the smoke detectors with brand new. They are still going off. I started thinking about the wiring, but you are saying you vacuumed your smoke detectors and that fixed it?
Glad you were there 😂😂😂😂😂
For all the people who were saying "stupid" about vacuuming ... we consulted people from the building department along with a fire safety specialist, and the advice is household dust can confuse an alarm because it is particulate matter that can sometimes be read as residue from a fire. If you are getting false alarms, change batteries AND VACUUM THE ALARM.
Would you talk to your granddaughter that way?
Power surge on street can also make them go off if backup batteries are old.
In the video you talk about false alarms due to dust. One study showed that ionization alarms had 8 times higher rates of false alarms than photoelectric alarms. I think that if you replace your ionization alarms with photoelectric alarms you may notice fewer false alarms. Especially in the areas near a kitchen this difference is most likely.
I have experienced the opposite. We had almost zero false alarms with ionization detectors and more with photoelectric. Ionization seem to be more sensitive to moisture from bathrooms. Photoelectric seem to be more sensitive to dust.
My Kidde detectors all usually decide to go off at 3 or 4 am!!!! I will die from a heart attack from the scare before I die from a fire!
I have the Kidde. 2:30am. Just went off for no reason. Ugh
my kiddle fire alarm went off at 2:30 AM and stops at an hour then goes off till 3:30 AM and stops beeping at 5:AM
@@cerium696 A/C will cause battery voltage drop late at night triggering chirps or alarm. Maybe
@@chrisjennings6664 the a/c was off late at night cuz i have born pups
Kidde is a bad brand
In my Grandparents(deceased) house, the smoke alarm would go off at 3am,only when I was staying there. It was checked out for dust, low battery etc, and it was in perfect working order.
I have a two family with interconnected smokes. The two apartments are on their own systems. When I lived there I experienced this problem on two or three different occasions but the problem went away with no action on my part. After I moved out and had rented the apartment a few times I got complaints from the other tenants that the alarms were going off. I went back with the owners manuals for the smokes and tested them they way outlined in the manual. I received error messages and the manual suggested I replace the bad detector. One by one I replaced every smoke in the apartment. Now they are all less than 2 months old and the new tenant just called to tell me that it happened twice last night. Once ar 12am and once at 2am. They are first alert hard wired smoke/carbon detectors and don't need to be cleaned because they are brand new. What should I do next?
I am having this issue as well
Did you find a solution?
It's the one with the blinking red light.
Press and hold the button to silence, and it will be quiet for a few seconds while you prepare the vacuum
New fire alarm installed few days ago, keeps beeping and flashing red every few minutes for no reason, there is no dust or spiders inside so can anyone tell me what's going on?
There are so many other reasons as well. Unstable voltage and humidity is maybe more common than dust from my experience
My wife was dusting off something in laundry room she said which is next to the smoke alarm detector when it went off. Changed out battery and it still continued. She wanted to call the A/C company that installed it so I got on youtube to see what it could be. Saw your video. Left it beeping while I vacuumed . It stopped . Probably saved me $100.Great trouble shooting technique to leave it beeping and then vacuuming to prove that dust was the problem. Thanks , It worked for me . I'm going to subscribe to youtube channel now.
My First Alert hard wired smoke detectors keep going off despite vacuuming them all the time. This is getting to be a real problem. I rent an apartment in my house to vacationers, and the alarms go off quite often. I've had to refund money. Any other ideas? I've had my electrician here already. I'm considering ripping them out and installing just the battery type because obviously, First Alert can not make a reliable product. What good is a smoke detector that you have to constantly disarm? What good is a smoke detector that is triggered by a little dust? Ridiculous.
Dale Lewinski you may want to try a new brand such as kidde. I have these and never have this problem.
+The Handyguys - is it that easy? Are they interchangeable?
+Dale Lewinski You can certainly replace smoke detectors... you have to wire in a new mount for the new brand. Turn off power for the circuit in question but it then takes about 5 minutes of work for each detector. I been slowly replacing mine because they only have about a 10 year lifespan.
I've worked in the commercial/residential fire alarm industry to 20 years. There is no way that all of the smoke detectors could go into alarm condition at the same time due to dirt. The most likely cause was something common to all of the detectors.... a problem with the power supply.
only one went off due to dirt... in modern homes they are connected so that when one goes off, they all sound the alarm.
Thank you
dear Todd, your alarm will be wired to the main fusebox but possibly in conjuncion with one or several light fittings, but simply trip the fuse off t the main electrical panel or remove the fuse in the case of the screw in type. Try vacuuming as suggested in video or repllacing units.
omg... 15 seconds video stretch out to 6 minutes. What a waste of time.
Alarm Type: PhotoElectric versus Ionization? Possible other reasons: bug-spider, electrical noise, air conditioner moving air and dust, moisture - heat difference between attic and room.
mine just went off couple minutes ago woke me from a dead sleep. went off. for like 20 seconds or so then stopped, like triggered the test button. scared the crap outta me. no smoke or nothing. thinking ghost also. lol
Omfg that just happened to me 5 minutes ago
happening now
It’s obviously dust
Duuude saaaame!
Same
it's also possible its just warning of low battery, this has hapened to me too because we had never previously tested it.
I'm having a similar issue, two different Tyco PG 9936 Power G wireless detectors falsing in the middle of the night in different bedrooms, different dates, months apart. Both had ceiling fans running on low nearby but 3 feet away. I bought this home a year ago and I suspect airborne dust is the culprit despite a clean environment. The house has new paint and carpet months ago, I dusted everything and replaced my air filters with Merv 13 4 inch deep filters a second time now. The lower Merv ratings the lower the filter particle removal and increase of air borne particles.
I will relocate my detectors further away from the return air vents and ceiling fan to avoid airborne particles, I replaced the non functioning electronic filters in the hvac system last December, perhaps this info will assist you in your personal diagnosis.
Reply
It's 12 midnight and our smoke alarms went off about 11:30 at night, way to freak us out. They turned off by themselves, I don't get it.
Ours was going off for no reason. Ours usually has the cover flipped open for the occasional smoke from the stove so we can pop the battery. It wasn't dust from the grills. I think it is something on the sensor itself. I took the board out and blew it with air. I will see if that does the trick... Thanks for the video though.
Let me throw this at you...we have the same typical smoke alarms that you discussed here, integrated throughout our house. The only problem we have that isnt smoke or fire related is that they will all sound after we shower. It seems that the warm moist air that comes from the bathroom when opening the door after a shower will set all the smoke alarms off. About 1 minute later, they all shut off and go silent once again. Why does and why would a shower set off a smoke alarm? I've lived many places in my life and this is the first house it has happened.
We are getting false alarms on wicked humid days.
It's obnoxious when people refuse to get to the point. Vacuum it out. It actually worked for me.
Thank you for your video. We were doing this at 3:00 in the morning. Husband was running around looking for a fire while I searched online. This worked.
I had this alarm going at 3:10 am. I was freaked out !
10 years later and these lousy smokes still can’t tell you which one is at fault. Great job Firex. FAIL!
Our Kidde alarms are 1.5 years old and have gone off several times, ALWAYS in the middle of the night. They are deafening! MUCH louder than necessary. They were vacuumed thoroughly about 2 months ago, and they went off again last night. I'm ready to crush them with a sledgehammer.
Me too. Live alone with my dog scares the hell out of me..
Our fire alarm has been triggered so many times recently I’ve lost track. It tells us it detects smoke and prepare as the alarm may sound. Sometimes it sets off at the most random of times, like 3am, and let me tell you how terrifying that is. I literally fear going to sleep now 😂 we’ve cleaned it by hoovering it, so it can’t be dust. There’s no humidity as I live in England and it’s freezing. No insects are inside as we’ve checked. Do you think it could just an inconveniently faulty batch of fire alarms? We have total of three in the house. Every single one we have has gone off at one stage, but the one upstairs seems to go off the most. There’s no draft upstairs. It’s so bizarre, we can’t pinpoint what it could be. I just don’t want it to keep crying wolf and then when there’s an actual emergency we just brush it off. It’s frustrating. :/
I am in the same situation, any solution
@@mr_handsome2you take the battery out and throw it in the bin, works every time🙄😂
@@Paulhanratty885 I figured it out issue solved 😆 🤣
@@mr_handsome2you 😁👍
Did you exorcise the demons?
You said there are 10 detectors in your house and you vacuumed 5 before they stopped sounding. This means you didn't know how to locate the initiating detector first. This is simple actually. Just look at the lights on the alarm. The one that is different than the others is the initiator. The ones that are the same light pattern are sounding because of the initiator and not because of the dust in itself. Therefore you only need to vacuum one alarm to resolve the issue.
Nice Banter, JUST TELL ME HOW TO FIX IT
Ok. use a vacuum.
Thank you
For fucks sake.
Tell us more about how Smoke Detectors were in the '70s instead of the problem and what to do!
Do they pay you by the number of words you say? Keep in mind that most of us who stumble on this video have a blaring smoke alarm going off over our heads.
My nest "smart" alarm woke me up at 5am, I threw it and shoved it into a cereal container filled with fiber glass and the lid because it came back every 5 minutes and it looks like it's working now
Thanks for the info, but CUT THE BS and get to the point!
yea, we have heard that before ;-)
I have to agree. I had to flip thru to get some info. Finally gave up. All I gleaned from this is vacuum the smoke detector. Was there anything else?
Great info at the end of the video. Too much talk on random bs.
Thanks guys appreciate it 👍🏾
Lots of negative comments, like just fast forward🤷🏾♀️
4:45 they finally get to the point. Could be dust, just try vacuuming all of them.
I was going to say it starts at 3:20 but yeah. So lame.
We have a 10 year old home, with approximately 12 hard wired detectors. On the second floor we have a problem with the detectors going off (during the winter), when I remove the detectors there is a considerable amount of water dripping from the junction box, my guess is condensation is built up (this has happened the last two winters - Very cold Chicago winters btw) It has also caused the ceiling fan/light combos to not work properly (those on the second floor - same attic). So the dust is not the issue but more of a condensation problem? Any thoughts on how to solve this?
Wow you have some seriously rude people in your comments. I hope you realize that, outside of those assholes, your videos are appreciated. Thanks.
TheEarthCreature We appreciate the encouragement. We try our best but can't please everyone, that is for sure!
Agreed. I liked it. Subscribed. Maybe I'm in better humor than most when their smoke alarms go off at 2:00am though.
I don’t understand why the alarm that was triggered doesn’t identify itself and require a reset to put it back online. I hate trying to guess which one is causing problems.
I have an area in my yard where water runs off my property to a retention area. When we have a storm we have excessive water in the run off area as it extends further into my yard and will get as high as2-3 ft
any complaining about the time just click the gear icon and speed up the video, watched in 30 seconds
Worked for three seconds. Is there a lifespan of reliability for a hardwired smoke alarm?
I have a First Alert smoke/fire/battery operated detector, which is mounted more or less in the near center of my master bedroom. The unit was installed when I first moved into the condo around 1986. Aside from the bi-yearly change of the square 9V battery (usually use Lithium or Alkaline to extend changes between battery death) .. the unit has been silent up till recently. The trigger seems to be taking a shower in the master bathroom where the door opens up into the bedroom. I have a heat-pump heating and cooling with blower system in the home, and never has the smoke detector gone off due to taking a shower, up until a few weeks ago. I normally have both doors from the bathroom open (one into the bedroom and the other into the hallway for second bedroom access) .. and the detector was always silent during showers, even at the most hot or steamiest, which I normally do not take. Now even a warm shower sets it off. Any suggestions?
Try the tip in the video. If that doesn't work, replace the detector.
You mean vacuuming the dust out of it (since it has not been vacuumed yet) 8 )
Yup
mine doing same thing. two weeks prior I installed a new battery.
Dude replace your smoke alarm it’s like 40 years over do when you are so posed to replace it.
An important note for latching alarms - you must press the test button after the alarm condition is resolved. In this case, this means after vacuuming causes the alarm to stop, you must press the test button to clear the latched alarm. How do you know if you have a latching alarm? Simple - look to see if the light pattern is different on the alarm that had dust as compared to the alarm that didn't sense dust. If it's different press the test button. Then look again and you will see that the light patterns are the same.
Well the vacuum worked but damn it took you guys forever to get to it but thanks I was going nuts
Okay guys... so a month ago it began. Fire dept said to replace the batteries. we did.. still happened.. i dont know what miracle i performed but i took it from the ceiling disconnected too and removed the battery and held the button for about 30 sec. Never went off till now It just started today keep in mind with new batteries so im about to perform the vaccum cleaning solution... my question is.. what could it be if it continues to do so after the new batteries, removing and unplugging it and now the vaccum? Thanks.
Rich Taylor I suppose you could have a bad detector. You may need to replace one of them if you can determine which one is causing the problem
The one in my room is the main, according to the Fire Dept. i tried your vac teq and it helped... after a few hours it turned on again so this time i hooked up the other end where it blows out the air with a bit of pressure and dust did fly out... hasnt bugged since. thanks for that. i do have the window open a lot and the fan on in my room so it does get really dusty so makes sense
This happened last night at like 3 am and I had to press and hold in the button on the smoke detectors for like 30 seconds until it rested its self
What about humidity? Can that make them go off? Seems like we have this problem only durring the warmer months.Or is it just the fact that fans are blowing around dust more???
My smoke detectors just did this at 2:30 this morning! They would eventually stop, then start again 5 minutes later. Right now, they're quiet. I'll vacuum them later today for sure.
I am in a apartment. The alarm is right in my hallway near the oven/stove and bathroom. It goes off every time I open my oven. I did have my balcony door open, so it went off after a minute. I do use my exhaust fan when cooking on the stove. Do I need it on for the oven as well?
Captain Insaino IS RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good lord that noise is DRIVING ME NUTZ Please make the bad man STOP!!!
So fucking true
Wow, 6-minutes to say what you could have said in one!
Just trying to have some fun with it. Can't please everyone ;-). Thanks for watching.
podcasters like to discuss, and discuss. :)
Yup. Like so much other crap on youtube!
At 4am. I need 10 second clip lol
Mine did this yesterday. The one on my main floor started first then they all went off and the second time the alarms went off it was the second floor smoke detector that started first then the rest kicked in. But if you don't hear which smoke detector goes off first then yes you wouldn't know But I think that is a great idea if it would indicate which alarm went off first. That's a good idea in case of a real fire!
Lol this made my alarms go off lol
I wonder if radium would set off a smoke detector.
The Handyguys: shouldnt we have a detector that reads out where it is?
Nest: HOLD MY GOD DAMN BEER!
I vacuumed my all my smoke detectors after removing them from the ceiling. This was after being woken up at 12am. I put them all back and they have been working fine. Again today at 11:30pm (always late at night) they arw wailing again. The back up batterys are dead, maybe time to replace them
In an emergency, the handy guys will sit you down for a chat and explain what to do. Bring popcorn, ready for when useful information starts happening.
video should be called 2 guys blowing smoke....whole video to just say try vacuuming to get rid of dust
+mike570059 that would be cool if we could blow smoke.
@@TheHandyguys
The vacuuming is total BS. For years for me it was always batteries till now. This time batteries did not resolve the problem, certainly vacuuming was a ridiculous try. So after two sleepless nights of beeping and after 15 years decided to replace all 5 detectors. Lucky for me the same brand I have were on sale for about $10 , but until I receive those I removed all detectors so I can sleep.
Wow if only i would have known this sooner before having to have smaked my smoke alarm till it broke
My hard-wired smoke alarm last night (boy, did I ever not get any sleep!) beeped once every half hour a few times starting just as I was falling asleep, of course...then once every hour or so, until I smacked it with a mop. Just one beep each time, but SUCH an annoying noise! Am guessing it is time to replace the whole thing but have no idea how long it has been in this apartment. Would you recommend this, or something else?
Thanks, vacuuming the smoke alarm works let a charm!!!
gmgmusic02 Awesome.
dust is one of them also small spiders can set them off too I seen one come out if the hole then the alarms silenced
You have the answer at the 00:00:40 second mark. The rest is talk!
BTW, my SO claims that spiders getting in there (and we have a few around the house) could cause the alarm to trip.
But I also learned that if a smoke detector is placed in a hallway that gets very hot or cold, it will set the whole bank of them off.
I’m looking for one for Wheelock fire alarms, can u do one? My panel keeps making these crackling noises and the alarm always goes off, and my pull stations and my panels are in my room, and the alarms are in the hallways. I feel like the panel is short fusing, can you help?
What I did when our smoke detector went off I used compressed air to blow out the dust that didn’t work what do I do next the battery is fully charged
Great tips, but didn't work. What should I do?
If the vacuuming din't work and blowing compressed air doesn't help then I would replace the problematic detector.
Last night I turned the heater on and maybe 5 hrs. Later all the fire alarms went off. It did smell like burned plastic. Any ideas? Thanks!
Ours went off 3 times last night starting at 2:30am. The previous night they went off a couple of times. Thus why I found your video! They are all interconnected and say FIRE FIRE FIRE. It freaks the dogs, cats & kids out. Then my @ss is grumpy the next day because I didn't get any sleep which puts my wife in a grumpy mood. So I replaced the batteries in all of them thinking I had fixed the issue and just about 30 min ago we got the FIRE FIRE FIRE alarm. Of course there is no documentation that came with our house how these things work or are wired together etc. So I plugged in my portable compressor and blew those MFers out. Hopefully that fixed it. Goodnight!!
This same thing is happening to me...tried vaccuming it and didnt work. Tried changing the batteries and still nothing. Help please this is really annoying and always seems to go off when we are fast asleep.
sounds like you need new ones
Does humidity make the smoke detectors go off for no reason as well
thank you I cleaned the fire alarms now they are quiet when they should be
Are you guys going to tell me how to fix it?
what if the light is green and it’s going off
I have this problem rn! Thanks for the video. Now I can sleep
Mine went off yesterday and I pushed the button and it stopped. After about twelve times of doing this I realized it needed a new battery.
So, they gabbed for 5 minutes before they cut to the chase and said that its just dust and you have to clean them regularly.... Sheesh.
Some people just like to hear themselves talk. This should’ve been a 30 second video.
This video is VERY longwinded.
Oh my hell. Vacuuming the smoke detector? I thought there would be a button to push. Too much talk.
Voice evacuation?
Helpful thank you guys! Im gunna try this.
THANKS, Ours just went off
This happened to me two days ago. We couldnt turn it off until we removed the whole thing from the wall. Real pain XD. Wanna upload the video I recorded of the thing soon.
130 a.m. here just south of boston and yes I'm here most likely because of dust.
Is it normal for the red light to blink on the smoke detector?
+RC Jr depends on brand of detector. Look up the manual for yours.
+The Handyguys Thanks for replying! I read the manual, it's in good working condition. Thanks!
Can’t wait till there’s a real fire in my house and it won’t go off
That’s right you know what he did there exactly he clean The dust or dirt off the detector smoke detector
It literally took you guys 3:30 to say "dust"!! This video should have been under 1 min. Length doesn't mean its gonna be better.