Smoke detectors chirp with new batteries

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Stevenfyeager

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United States, Indiana
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electrical contractor
Detectors chirp with new batteries and after resetting them following Kidde instructions on line. Actually we removed all detectors we can find, 8. The sound changes location each time. Help ! Thanks
 
Stevenfyeager said:
Detectors chirp with new batteries and after resetting them following Kidde instructions on line. Actually we removed all detectors we can find, 8. The sound changes location each time. Help ! Thanks
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Bad batteries? Or bad detectors? Are they old detectors?

Didn't they start requiring an "end of life" chirp on newer smoke detectors? If they are combo smoke/CO detectors, I think they only last about 5 years.
 
steve66 said:
Bad batteries? Or bad detectors? Are they old detectors?

Didn't they start requiring an "end of life" chirp on newer smoke detectors? If they are combo smoke/CO detectors, I think they only last about 5 years.
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Seven to ten, depending on the model. And yes, there is an end-of-life chirp that won't go away no matter what you do.
 
gadfly56 said:
Seven to ten, depending on the model. And yes, there is an end-of-life chirp that won't go away no matter what you do.
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We removed the detectors from the home (8 of them). There is still a chirp every 30 seconds but it changes location each chirp. This is crazy. All chirps are on the second floor. Thanks!
 
Stevenfyeager said:
We removed the detectors from the home (8 of them). There is still a chirp every 30 seconds but it changes location each chirp. This is crazy. All chirps are on the second floor. Thanks!
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what does the chirp mean based on the sticker on backside ??
does the house have natural gas? natural gas will rise, natural gas detectors will alarm if gas is detected and cannot be reset (not 100% sure is every maker does this).
 
Stevenfyeager said:
We removed the detectors from the home (8 of them). There is still a chirp every 30 seconds but it changes location each chirp. This is crazy. All chirps are on the second floor. Thanks!
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Did someone stuff smoke detectors in the attic??
 
Stevenfyeager said:
We removed the detectors from the home (8 of them). There is still a chirp every 30 seconds but it changes location each chirp. This is crazy. All chirps are on the second floor. Thanks!
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CO detector somewhere? But that wouldn't explain it moving.

Time to call an Exterminator?
 
Doing some work in a rental for a day or so, kept hearing a smoke detector chirp all day. Drove me nuts and at times I would look to see if it was one of the detectors on the walls. Ended up being a battery smoke detector stuffed in a box in a closet.
 
Thank you. I told the owner most people find an unplugged CO detector, he was sure there was none. The owner called 2 hours ago saying he called the previous owner. There HAD been a CO detector which had been unplugged. They had forgotten they had seen it and unplugged it sometime. They found it and plugged it in. The chirping stopped. He apologized very much! Still, the moving locations of the chirp puzzles me.... But thankful we found it ! Thank you
 
Stevenfyeager said:
Thank you. I told the owner most people find an unplugged CO detector, he was sure there was none. The owner called 2 hours ago saying he called the previous owner. There HAD been a CO detector which had been unplugged. They had forgotten they had seen it and unplugged it sometime. They found it and plugged it in. The chirping stopped. He apologized very much! Still, the moving locations of the chirp puzzles me.... But thankful we found it ! Thank you
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FWIW, the owner of the house for my boxed detector swore it was the upstairs detector(s). I thought it was on one of the two lower floors, but when I went to the basement it sounded like it was on the main. It took several trips up and down to find it. I thought it was funny, she was embarrassed.
 
FWIW the chirp sound is very hard to localize (have you ever tried to find a cricket that you can't see?)
Reflections and standing waves at the constant pitch make it seem to be coming from the opposite direction sometimes.
The short duration of the sound prevents you from your normal tactic of moving your head to confirm the direction.


Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
Chirps can sound like they are coming from different locations. Imagine how maddening this can be when not one but 3 or 4 smoke detectors are chirping on the same floor of a hotel. Hence one reason I pushed a cart of two gross (288) batteries and a ladder once a year.
 
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