A Little Excitement...

I still don't know what was going on....
I got home from work last eve and did the "normal"; fed the cats, added a bucket of coal. and emptied the ashes.
Afterwards, I started getting some things ready for supper and all the smoke detectors went off ! ( not cooking anything)
My first move was to the basement, "everything seems fine". Then I check the boiler rm., "again no problems". Meanwhile the cats are hangin' off the curtains and the alarm is still going. I run out to the garage and grab a ladder, "while checking the outside of the house".
'Back in the house, "I pop the door to the attic and all is well".
By this time I go back and start trying to silence the detectors and they finally stop.
In my haste, I never did look to see which one alarmed ?

The house didn't burn down and the only idea I have is that 2 of the detectors are old ( 13yrs.)
Last summer I did replace 3 of them but the remaining 2 tested OK .

This morning I stopped at Wally World and got 2 new ones.

Does anyone know if detectors can fail and cause a false alarm ?
To add, the 5 detectors are wired into the "110v house wiring", plus battery.

The cats are still "wigged out".

Mossy Beard

The short answer is no. Dust can trigger them to go off though. Did you raise a cloud of dust when adding that coal? Also, when you push the button on a smoke detector and it beeps, all you are proving is that there is power and the beeper works, not that the sensor will detect smoke. The sensors become unreliable after 10 years and the units should be replaced.

Get rid of the cats.

Sorry the cats were traumatized. Geepers, no fun! I'm glad there wasn't a problem involved with the issue.

I never thought about it. All my detectors are wired together also. If they go off, is there a way to know which one tripped?

Cats are probably going to stay....

I realized later that the detector that caused the alarm should have a red led flashing. (read the instructions)

There was no real dust involved.
I would guess that any thing electronic, can fail ? Just not sure of the result ?

Mossy Beard

I'll second the replace every 10 years or when they flash that they are bad.
The 2 13 year old detectors were the most likley cause.
Find the flasher then pull it off line.
You can pull the detectors off line while they are alarming to find out which one is the bad one.
Kind of fun to do when suddenly awoken!
I have 10 alarms in two buildings that are tied together, lots of fun when someone burns their popcorn at 2 am!
They failed in batches first batch at 4 years second at 5 years.
The MFG recommends replacment every 10 years.

YES 100% they can and DO fail. As mentioned anything electronic CAN fail.

I had one fail on me earlier this year and it was only 3 years old.

I had another fail right out of the package brand new this fall.

So yes... they fail and in the case of the first one I had fail ,it also alarmed for no apparent reason. I regularly vacuum them out so I know dust was not an issue there either.

Yep - happened a year ago with my wired carbon monoxide detectors. I wasn't burning at the time and nothing was cooking - in other words there was no source for any CO. They went off, I reset, a short time later they went off again and I reset again. By the third time, I called upon the fire dept to come and take some readings because I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on.

They came and ended up isolating the bad one in the chain for me so I could remove and replace it.

I had 2 smoke detectors that would give false alarms when the house got cold. When I went on vacation, I'd turn the baseboard electric stats down to 55 degrees or less. The neighbor that keeps an eye on the house would always have to disable them once the temps in the house dropped. The detectors were pretty old, at least 10 years. I've since replaced them and have not had any problems with false alarms when house is cold.

It gets you kind of excited when they go off. Sounds like you got it solved.

Just to be clear. Yes, CO detector indicators do fail with time. But it's not really a failure in the sense that something broke. It's a degradation with time of the CO gas sensor element. The sensor has electrolyte which evaporates. Think of it as a battery. Even if you don't use a dry cell or wet cell battery over time it will not work as expected. Many CO detectors have a suggested replacement time of 5 years after installation. What this really means is 5 years after the package sealing was first broken. It's the package sealing that prevents electrolyte evaporation. If you buy old stock CO detectors be sure the package sealing is in tact.

The reliability of modern consumer electronics is remarkably good. Assuming it's not physically abused.

Yes, my 120V, 3 floor, wired together fire alarms started going off randomly and they were 10+ years old. I looked at the info and they do that after they get old. After a few false alarms, I pulled them.

Replacing them should fix the problem. By the way, mine don't have eyes.