Hello All,
I am new here and an amateur, so please forgive my probably simple/dumb question.
I replaced my uncles’ old home fire alarms (6 of them today) with new “2-in-1 Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarms” from costco. They all have power and alert by pressing the test button individually, BUT do not ALL alarm as they should when any one of them is tested so clearly are not communicating w/each other.
I dont know if the previous alarms communicated, and I
replaced them due to 10y age limit.
I connected the red wire from the wall to the orange wire from the power connector wire. Hot to hot and neutral to neutral.
Also tried orange power connector wire to the bare copper ground wire to no avail.
Does anyone have experience with this or have a good place for me to start looking for a solution?
Appreciate any ideas.
Thanks very much in advance!
If you want to check if the smoke alarms are working correctly, you can see if there is a 9VDC output between the orange and white wires on the harness. ONLY DO THIS TEST WHILE THEY ARE NOT WIRED UP TO THE WIRES IN THE WALL! If they are working correctly, you should see a 9v output. If not, they might not be. Another test you can try would be to just hook two of the harnesses directly together (not the black wires) away from the wall and see if they interconnect. If you find that they do work, it’s almost certainly an issue with the wiring. If they somehow are all broken, you should definitely try to file some sort of complaint/warranty claim.
If the issue does end up being the wiring and you don’t want to get it fixed or looked at, you could always go for wireless interconnect models.
Hay! Manuel-the electrician-would likely be the best bet, likely you are right. That said, unfortunately the manual and the 800# peeps do not explain how to correct more complex connectivity issues that may come from the red wires, I assume they assume our house is brand new and free of issues like that. I was hoping someone with experience w/ this in particular might have some wisdom to share:)
