brk 9120 problems

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chris7539

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I have a 300 unit apartment complex, we have brk 9120 b detectors installed, they randomly go off. Has anyone had this problem? I have replaced batteries, the detectors are not dirty, we had a power quality meter and found nothing unusual. Does anyone have any ideas?

Chris
 
Not all of us are going to know what a brk 9120 b might be, and I'm among the "know nots." Perhaps a bit more information might help.
 
charlie b said:
Not all of us are going to know what a brk 9120 b might be, and I'm among the "know nots." Perhaps a bit more information might help.
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Charlie they are BRK smoke detectors
 
My supply company just changed from firex -- never had a problem-- to BRK 9120B. I just installed my first one today. Fingers are crossed.
 
Chris-

How sure are you that the detector field is clean? I am asking because there are instances on some detectors, both ionization and photo-electric, of insects, dust particles and even dirt getting in to them.

One question is: do they continually go off or is there a certain time that you are noticing?
 
kkwong said:
Chris-

One question is: do they continually go off or is there a certain time that you are noticing?
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Are they going off after someone took a steamy shower and the SD are outside the bathroom door.
 
Brk 9120b is a ionization smoke detector, these units are clean, a large percentage are in unoccupied units. I recently (8 weeks ago) replaced 600 detectors. These were ok until about a week ago, now I am having random problems, again, about 60 percent of the false alarms are at night. The brk engineers installed a power quality meter, they did not find anything, they also checked for RF energy, again no problems. I am hoping somone has had this problem and can suggest a fix...
 
Forced air heating/ac in these apartments? These are ionizations type detectors, and if you have the detectors mounted too close to the supply's and return's, they'll certainly go off seemingly at random.
 
mdshunk said:
Forced air heating/ac in these apartments? These are ionizations type detectors, and if you have the detectors mounted too close to the supply's and return's, they'll certainly go off seemingly at random.
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The building code requires SD to have a 3' clearance from cold air returns.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
The building code requires SD to have a 3' clearance from cold air returns.
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But we both know that what codes say and what got installed and approved are often two very different things. Plus, I think that 3 feet is entirely too close for to a return for a smoke alarm to provide assured trouble free operation.
 
Chris, are they recently painted? Paint fumes wreak havoc on ionization-type detectors.

That's why they come with the little pink shower-caps.
 
LarryFine said:
Chris, are they recently painted? Paint fumes wreak havoc on ionization-type detectors.

That's why they come with the little pink shower-caps.
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I thought the pink caps were for the dust. I buy the ones with nose plugs for the fumes.;)
 
I was thinking more along the lines of the Fyrnetics 1275. A similar model to the BRK discussed in this thread. (Edit: Looks like i12060 is the same thing)

As for the problems you are experiencing regarding the non-communication between units, I offer the following possibilities:

1) The red lead is not stripped (I know, but you have to ask). :D

2) Connector not fully seated on the smoke alarm.

3) Your 3-wire cable is bad.

4) Bad batch of smokes, have to replace `em all. (happens to the best of `em)

I have had all of the above occur at one time or another when troubleshooting smokes... ;)
 
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