For the past year, our hardwired smoke detectors from Kidde have been randomly losing power and chirping every minute, usually at night. They have battery backups, but that doesn't seem to help much. When this happens, the light on the unit turns red and blinks, and the chirping drives us nuts, waking up the kids! The installation company couldn't diagnose the problem since it rarely does it when they're there. Resetting the circuit breaker doesn't work, and the only temporary fix is pressing the reset button, which makes all units beep. We really need help figuring this out!
3 Answers
I got rid of the battery backups and replaced my smoke detectors with commercial AC-only units. I wired all of them to a master shutoff switch that I placed conveniently near the bedrooms. Sure, it might not be up to code, but I found it to be a game changer for avoiding those annoying false alarms. Just a heads up to be careful about the laws regarding smoke detectors!
I ended up switching all my smoke detectors to Nest Protects after dealing with constant false alarms from my old ones. It's nice being able to check everything through the app and silence alarms without running around the house. It really eased my mind, especially during those late-night moments!
Have you tried using canned air to clean out the sensors? I called Kidde after experiencing similar problems. They mentioned that dust or other debris might be causing issues and suggested blowing out the units with canned air. It worked for me! If that doesn’t help, they also offered to send replacements. Might be worth a shot!