Pure speculation on my part, but it may also have to do with spring cleaning and whatever plants are in bloom in your area. Photoionization detectors cannot distinguish smoke from other particulates of the same size such as dust and pollen.
After all these years these simple devices cannot tell the diff.
They were only designed to detect small particles, not to tell you what those particles are. It may be possible to add on some more components and software and a couple thousand to the sales price and do that though.
Multi-criteria smoke detectors can do a much better job of discriminating the signal source, using red and blue light, CO detection, and heat detection. They are also a lot pricier. The Siemens product line shows a 2.5X between your run-of-the-mill photo detector and the multi-criteria detector. I have a very old price list that shows a trade net of $250 for the fancy detector. And photo detectors are not that common in consumer products. Kidde sells a dual photo/ionization smoke alarm for $23 vs $13 for the bottom-of-the-line ionization alarm, both not including CO, voice notification, or any other bells and whistles.
Outside of the tech junkies that want something just because it is fascinating to them most others just want something that will wake them up when they are asleep if it detects anything abnormal, may be fine with something that cost a little more than the bottom market price but don't feel they need the absolute best thing out there either. Many don't even know there are advantages and disadvantages to having photoelectric vs ionization types in certain areas but also good to have a combination of both throughout the house.
If half their market demographic showed up at company headquarters with pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers, the smoke alarm folks would deliver a much better product. As it is, I don't know of any state that doesn't mandate smoke alarms and/or CO alarms for residential occupancies. When people have to buy your product, product improvement isn't high on the To-Do list, especially if the complaint rate is way below 1%.
This is why I mentioned that the NFPA needs to pick up the ball. It's under their purview. End users don't even know the crap they are buying is either faulty in some way, or simply does not work at all. Who would ever know if the only thing using power from a wired smoke alarm was a green LED and a buzzer that sounded when you pressed a "test" button.
I don't think this is an NFPA thing, it's a UL thing. NFPA tells you where to put them, UL tells you what they have to do.
It kinda is because NFPA is a main source of reporting and such, and they also provide all the guidelines (where to put them, how to test them, etc etc).
On hold with kidde right now, will demand money back for all of them.
Which specific model, and what mfgr date do they have? Maybe there's a supply chain issue and you are getting some knock-off items?Update: So I ended up replacing the 7 units with new ones. Recall client took them all down after they went off the first time so I didnt know which one was triggering the event. The supply house didnt really want to replace them, said call kidde. Called but didnt have time to sit on hold, got pissed off and hung up. Figured Ill prolly just end up eating the $90. Just talked to client and they went off again last night
Considering the number of Kidde smoke alarms we install without call backs I'm going to say there is either a wiring issue or the customer is causing them triggering them somehow. Most likely if you replace with BRK you will get the same call back.Update: So I ended up replacing the 7 units with new ones. Recall client took them all down after they went off the first time so I didnt know which one was triggering the event. The supply house didnt really want to replace them, said call kidde. Called but didnt have time to sit on hold, got pissed off and hung up. Figured Ill prolly just end up eating the $90. Just talked to client and they went off again last night
i12060A. Says march 28, 2020 on the back
Interesting thanks.
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An update: So I did end up replacing all the units with BRK. Everything was good for a month, and then they went off one night. Manager lady there said they were having issues at another of the client's houses down the road. Then today, an apartment I did 2 years ago, they went off last night multiple times. What the hell is going on here?? I have been in electrical for about 22 years now, and I only recall a couple of issues with this in the past - like literally I can only think of one, but I say a couple because I could be forgetting one
