BRK Smoke Alarms

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goldstar

goldstar

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
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Electrical Contractor
Just curious to know if any of you have recently had experienced any problems with BRK, 120V interconnected smoke alarms. I had occasion to replace (6) this past weekend at a customer's house. Her husband was an EC who passed away several years ago and installed these smoke alarms himself. He did an exceptionally neat job but it took me a while to figure out some of the things he had done with respect to the entire system.

First off, I removed ALL the existing Firex smoke alarms (well at least I thought I did). When I installed the first new BRK unit I tested it and triggered the house's fire alarm system. After calling the central station and straightening that out it took me over an hour to find the (2) relay modules that were in 4 11/16" JB's in the attic. I then went back to the initial unit and retested it only to find that there was an additional Firex unit in the crawl space. I removed that and installed a new BRK combo unit.

Now, getting to the problem, I had (3) combo units installed and all worked perfectly. I installed the first std. smoke alarm in the master BR and still everything worked fine. When I attempted to install the second smoke alarm in another BR, just as I removed the unit from the box I pulled out the plastic strip and closed the battery compartment. I didn't even plug it into the 120V cord and it started going into alarm mode. I opened up another unit and it seemed OK. I connected it to 120V power via the cord and the unit went into alarm mode and wouldn't stop. I also tried connecting only the 120V feed and not the red wire and had the same problem. It went into alarm but obviously didn't trigger the others.

If any of you have any ideas on what I should be trouble-shooting I would appreciate it.

Thanks.
 
infinity

infinity

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Staff member
Location
New Jersey
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Journeyman Electrician
goldstar said:
Just curious to know if any of you have recently had experienced any problems with BRK, 120V interconnected smoke alarms. I had occasion to replace (6) this past weekend at a customer's house. Her husband was an EC who passed away several years ago and installed these smoke alarms himself. He did an exceptionally neat job but it took me a while to figure out some of the things he had done with respect to the entire system.

First off, I removed ALL the existing Firex smoke alarms (well at least I thought I did). When I installed the first new BRK unit I tested it and triggered the house's fire alarm system. After calling the central station and straightening that out it took me over an hour to find the (2) relay modules that were in 4 11/16" JB's in the attic. I then went back to the initial unit and retested it only to find that there was an additional Firex unit in the crawl space. I removed that and installed a new BRK combo unit.

Now, getting to the problem, I had (3) combo units installed and all worked perfectly. I installed the first std. smoke alarm in the master BR and still everything worked fine. When I attempted to install the second smoke alarm in another BR, just as I removed the unit from the box I pulled out the plastic strip and closed the battery compartment. I didn't even plug it into the 120V cord and it started going into alarm mode. I opened up another unit and it seemed OK. I connected it to 120V power via the cord and the unit went into alarm mode and wouldn't stop. I also tried connecting only the 120V feed and not the red wire and had the same problem. It went into alarm but obviously didn't trigger the others.

If any of you have any ideas on what I should be trouble-shooting I would appreciate it.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Not sure if this is germane to the problem but it sounds as if the ole sparky had wired the output of the 120 volt smoke alarms into the relay which initiates the home alarm system.
 
goldstar

goldstar

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
infinity said:
Not sure if this is germane to the problem but it sounds as if the ole sparky had wired the output of the 120 volt smoke alarms into the relay which initiates the home alarm system.
Click to expand...
That's exactly what he did. It took me over an hour to find the JB in the attic where the relay was.
 
goldstar

goldstar

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
OK. So, I bench-tested each of the (3) BRK 9120B smoke alarms that I brought back from the job yesterday and they worked perfectly. I only connected the 120V portion and not the interconnect wire. I'm going to go back there today and try to re-connect these units but I'll have (3) new ones in reserve just in case. Thanks for all your replies.
 
Chamuit

Chamuit

Grumpy Old Man
Location
Texas
Occupation
Electrician
I've never had a problem with the BRK 9120B.

Installed a couple of Firex's as well.
 
goldstar

goldstar

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
OK. I don’t know what the hell I did but I went back today and re-installed the smoke alarms that I had problems with on Saturday and they worked perfectly. Does anyone believe in ghosts ? :eek:hmy::eek:hmy:
 
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