03 Nov 2008

Will someone please invent a smoke alarm…


…that doesn’t take five minutes to figure out it has a fresh battery in it? Or beep after you’ve disconnected the power AND removed the battery (that was an almost amusing ‘whaaaaa?’ moment)?

I just put fresh batteries into the smoke detectors upstairs (after determining that I’d have to run new wire all throughout the attic if I want them connected to each other, and deciding that the things are so damn loud that, should anything ever catch on fire, one going off will be plenty so why bother right now?). With the power off (from that attic checking) I put one in. After a moment, it beeped. No idea why. I pulled it out to deal with something else. After ten seconds, the damn thing beeped again with no power source; capacitor must have held some charge. Anyway, I go around and put new batteries in all of them. I flip on the breaker. There is some beeping here and there. I open a battery compartment to check to make sure it’s in. It is. There is still beeping. I press all the ‘press here to silence’ buttons. Still beeping. I go downstairs to see if the manufacturer has a user manual online (they don’t – I don’t understand why companies don’t archive PDF manuals of discontinued products…) While sitting on the couch. I notice less and less beeping. Then there is silence.

I swear, as soon as I go back upstairs they’ll start again. They’re just waiting for me…

No, seriously, why do smoke detectors take several minutes to figure out whether you’ve corrected the problem or not? The same thing happened in an apartment I used to live in. I realize these things are pretty simple machines, but still…

This has been the first, I believe, and only, I hope, post that is much more ‘blog’ and less ‘house’.

  1. #1 by Sarah on 24 November 2008 - 7:36 pm

    See, that’s sad, because this one didn’t make my estrogen shut off my brain in the middle.

  2. #2 by Mooch on 24 November 2008 - 7:51 pm

    Hey, whatever happened to that lady I knew years ago who was all about fixing a car on her own? A house is no different – if anything, it’s simpler because it’s unlikely to move on you suddenly while you work on it.

  3. #3 by Sarah on 25 November 2008 - 5:32 am

    Well, I totally changed a car battery by myself. Does that count? And I like HGTV.

(will not be published)