Fire Angel wired smoke alarms keep sounding?
Discussion
I’m hoping someone can shed some light on an annoying problem we’re having!
We have a new wired smoke alarm system. We have 3 smoke alarms and 2 heat detectors. They’re all Fire Angel, and all have battery back up.
Every couple of weeks they go off for no reason. Scares the life out of us.
I can’t find any thing online to say why this might be. But it’s looking like it might have a pattern as it seems to always be around 8pm and every couple of weeks.
They’re on their own designated wired circuit, and all show a green light to say they’re connected and working.
Thanks
We have a new wired smoke alarm system. We have 3 smoke alarms and 2 heat detectors. They’re all Fire Angel, and all have battery back up.
Every couple of weeks they go off for no reason. Scares the life out of us.
I can’t find any thing online to say why this might be. But it’s looking like it might have a pattern as it seems to always be around 8pm and every couple of weeks.
They’re on their own designated wired circuit, and all show a green light to say they’re connected and working.
Thanks
PT1984 said:
Do they all sound if you test them?
This.I have a 3 alarm wired system which would trigger randomly, all tested OK.
I bought a single replacement alarm and swapped out each in turn, eventually this isolated the faulty unit, which was still testing as OK.
I think it was probably contaminated with dust (new build)?
James-06gep said:
You could be right here, only I replaced the 2 hall units due to dust during the renovation. Maybe I’ll try a new heat detector as well and that’ll be the last of the older units replaced.
The heat detectors should be fine and don't generally suffer with contamination as they don't use the optical LED and sensor principle of detection. They should just be a heat probe which is looking for the surrounding air temperature to rise between two set points within a set time period and/or a specific temperature limit to be exceeded. Your false alarm could well be caused by heat detectors being installed too close to a heat emitting cooking appliance like a cooker or hob. A sudden updraft of hot air from an opened over door can trigger a false alarm as can a increase in air temperature in a short period of time from having all four rings of a hob burning. While all of your detectors may sound they should have an indicator light to show which detector has been activated. This should make fault finding easier if its the same device being activated each time.
It's luck of the draw with optical smoke detectors. They'll either last the entire 10 or 15 year life span or a small spider can get inside of the chamber and fill it with cob webs within a few days of installing them. They should have a mesh screen protecting the labyrinth chamber but those spiders always find a way in.
Ionisation detectors were better and less prone to contamination but they aren't all that common any more outside of some specific uses. They can be a little sensitive to burnt toast though as they are quite sensitive.
If you can find new 'old stock' of an ionisation option of the detector range you have that's what I would install.
James-06gep said:
They’re on their own designated wired circuit, and all show a green light to say they’re connected and working.
When they're all going off have you looked to see if you can determine which was the trigger? I am not familiar with Fire Angels but on our alarms (from Aico) the alarm that triggered the whole lot off makes itself known through its red LED indicator.(Edit: Apologies - now that I've read the whole thread I see dci has already suggested this above)
dci said:
James-06gep said:
You could be right here, only I replaced the 2 hall units due to dust during the renovation. Maybe I’ll try a new heat detector as well and that’ll be the last of the older units replaced.
The heat detectors should be fine and don't generally suffer with contamination as they don't use the optical LED and sensor principle of detection. They should just be a heat probe which is looking for the surrounding air temperature to rise between two set points within a set time period and/or a specific temperature limit to be exceeded. Your false alarm could well be caused by heat detectors being installed too close to a heat emitting cooking appliance like a cooker or hob. A sudden updraft of hot air from an opened over door can trigger a false alarm as can a increase in air temperature in a short period of time from having all four rings of a hob burning. While all of your detectors may sound they should have an indicator light to show which detector has been activated. This should make fault finding easier if its the same device being activated each time.
It's luck of the draw with optical smoke detectors. They'll either last the entire 10 or 15 year life span or a small spider can get inside of the chamber and fill it with cob webs within a few days of installing them. They should have a mesh screen protecting the labyrinth chamber but those spiders always find a way in.
Ionisation detectors were better and less prone to contamination but they aren't all that common any more outside of some specific uses. They can be a little sensitive to burnt toast though as they are quite sensitive.
If you can find new 'old stock' of an ionisation option of the detector range you have that's what I would install.
KAgantua said:
IME a lot of the Fire Angel non wired non linked ones go 'beepy' after a few years.
Top British smoke alarm manufacturer admits 90,000 of its most popular devices are faultyGassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff