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We have 13 of them in our house. It seems there is always one with a battery going dead. Between the endless battery beeping and constant false alarms, we ended up taking most of them out. IN some rooms we replaced them with non-hard wire types that we can put in places where they are easy to reach and where they are less inclined to false alarm.
If you change brands, you often have to change out the plastic ceiling /wall mount and the wiring harness.
I second the suggestion you stick with Kidde. Some of the other brands are really terrible quality. No matter the brand be sure to test them. We were surprised to find out how many did not work. I woudl guess we went through close to 30 of them to get to 13 working. Some woudl not alarm, some woudl not stop, some would not communicate like they are supposed to. One box, we bought a dozen in a box and took them all back all but 1 or 2 were defective, so we just changed brands (changed to kidde).
By test them, I do nto mean just push the test button. take some paper, light it and blow it out. Allow the smoke to trail into the detector.
Making it worse is one of our dogs is terrified of the beeps. If its in the middle of the night she will get up and try to get into bed and will not stop. During the day, sometimes she will pee on the floor.
Funny - I have a dog that responds exactly the same way to the smoke alarm beeps! It's very weird.
We have a faulty smoke alarm in the house. I was just going to replace the unit, but when I went online and reviews of my current nit it seems many people are experiencing the same problems. So....my question is, can I replace with a different brand or must they all be the same brand since they are hard wired together?
No you cant. At least you could not in 2007. Maybe they have changed. At that time, the different brands and even some models of the same brand woudl not communicate with each other properly. In one instances it made them all go off all the time, except the odd brand one. Just stick with Kidde. Still some of them may not work.
No you cant. At least you could not in 2007. Maybe they have changed. At that time, the different brands and even some models of the same brand woudl not communicate with each other properly. In one instances it made them all go off all the time, except the odd brand one. Just stick with Kidde. Still some of them may not work.
If you have a wireless system then you need the same model, but if the smoke detector is wired into the control panel you can use any smoke detector you want, they all have relays which are isolated from the system, I am an alarm dealer and I have done many fire systems with lots of different brand detectors.
No you cant. At least you could not in 2007. Maybe they have changed. At that time, the different brands and even some models of the same brand woudl not communicate with each other properly. In one instances it made them all go off all the time, except the odd brand one. Just stick with Kidde. Still some of them may not work.
Absolutely correct. In the case of Kidde and FireX, the current models can only be interconnected with three FireX models made before FireX was bought by Kidde (the AD, ADC, and FADC).
FYI, BRK/First Alert is also a good brand in my experience.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikealarm
If you have a wireless system then you need the same model, but if the smoke detector is wired into the control panel you can use any smoke detector you want, they all have relays which are isolated from the system, I am an alarm dealer and I have done many fire systems with lots of different brand detectors.
I think this is only the case with commercial smoke alarm systems; residential systems do not typically have a control panel nor relays. For residential units, you generally have to use the same brand of smoke detector to interconnect them.
Absolutely correct. In the case of Kidde and FireX, the current models can only be interconnected with three FireX models made before FireX was bought by Kidde (the AD, ADC, and FADC).
FYI, BRK/First Alert is also a good brand in my experience.
I think this is only the case with commercial smoke alarm systems; residential systems do not typically have a control panel nor relays. For residential units, you generally have to use the same brand of smoke detector to interconnect them.
I do not remember the brand, but we tried some non-Kidde brand we bought in boxes of a dozen at home depot. We ended up buying three boxes of them to try to get 13 to work. Finally we replaced the remaining non-working ones with Kidde, but the wiring harness and mount were different and had to be changed out. And Kidde and the cheap ones did not work together. Then we replaced them all with Kidde. Then a kidde one went bad and we replaced it with one from Lowes (hope depot was out) they woudl not work. We tried a different one made by Kidde but a different model. It would not work.
Hard wired systems are dumb. We ended up taking almost all of ours down and replacing them with battery only detectors. That way we can move them where they work better, replace them as needed, and easily disable one if we are doing somehting that will set it off repeatedly.
I do not remember the brand, but we tried some non-Kidde brand we bought in boxes of a dozen at home depot. We ended up buying three boxes of them to try to get 13 to work. Finally we replaced the remaining non-working ones with Kidde, but the wiring harness and mount were different and had to be changed out. And Kidde and the cheap ones did not work together. Then we replaced them all with Kidde. Then a kidde one went bad and we replaced it with one from Lowes (hope depot was out) they woudl not work. We tried a different one made by Kidde but a different model. It would not work.
Hard wired systems are dumb. We ended up taking almost all of ours down and replacing them with battery only detectors. That way we can move them where they work better, replace them as needed, and easily disable one if we are doing somehting that will set it off repeatedly.
The reason why hardwired units are now pretty much standard in new construction is to have them interconnected where they can be heard throughout the house. However, what would really be ideal would be units with 10 year non-removable sealed lithium batteries (preferably with photoelectric sensors, rather than ionization) and wireless interconnect. There are units that offer one or the other, but I don't know of any unit that offers both.
As for the other brand, perhaps it could have been USI Electric (the third largest manufacturer of smoke alarms in the U.S. behind Kidde and BRK/First Alert), which I believe is carried by some Home Depot locations. Most Home Depot locations do not carry BRK/First Alert products, so I don't think it would have been one of their products.
Last edited by Pink Jazz; 07-08-2013 at 05:25 PM..
The reason why hardwired units are now pretty much standard in new construction is to have them interconnected where they can be heard throughout the house. However, what would really be ideal would be units with 10 year non-removable sealed lithium batteries (preferably with photoelectric sensors, rather than ionization) and wireless interconnect. There are units that offer one or the other, but I don't know of any unit that offers both.
That is what we use. wireless communicating units with 10 year batteries. I did not look to see whether the batteries are replaceable. Expensive but they work great and do not false alarm all the time like the hardwired garbage. Our local inspector will not accept them, it had to be hardwired. I cannot tell you how many endless problems we had with the stupid hardwired system. We started taking them out almost as soon as we got our inspection/approval. Dumbest garbage POS system I ever saw. no one paid any attention to them anyway because of the constant false alarms. They just put a pillow over their head and waited for me to find the malfunctioning unit and pull it out. I hate hate hate that system. Cost a fortune, made us rip up parts of our historic home to put them in and it never worked worth a darn. BTW when we tested the individual units by lighting a paper on fire and blowing it out then blowing the smoke into the detector, we discovered many of them are defective right out of the box.
In case I forgot to mention it I think those things are garbage and I hate them.
The pricey wireless ones - no problems. They all work. Not garbage.
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