I have this old hard wired smoke detector on the 2nd floor with no cover. I believe it’s a BRK 769AC. It’s the only hard wired detector in the house. The other detectors are battery powered (non hard wired)
The 3 pin connector coming from the ceiling is so old and I don’t believe they make a suitable replacement. It has black, white, and green wires.
I believe most new detectors have black, white, and red wires.
It does indeed appear to be a very old BRK AC-powered detector: I would not advise cutting the plug off its power connecter though as that would ruin its condition; I would however advise you replace it (but just the same not throw it out!) as it’s well over 10 years old.
Would you happen to know where the cover is by any chance?
Shame: a detector’s not complete without its cover.
Yes, but from what I’ve seen only some very old detectors have a ground wire: most of the time the third wire that’s not black or white is the interconnect wire.
The color of the interconnect wire all depends on the brand:
BRK/First Alert: Orange
FireX & USI Electric/Universal: Yellow
Kidde: Red
Generally, many AC units today do not use a grounding wire. Why that is I’m not entirely sure, but not even every consumer electric device we plug into the wall is grounded, so I suppose it’s not that big of a deal.
I’d recommend just junking the alarm, honestly. If you can’t find the cover and don’t intend to keep it as a display piece (it doesn’t look super pretty without the cover) then I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’s served its functional duty and if you really wanted a specimen to display, there are probably ones on ebay that you could buy to put on a shelf.
Assuming you want to replace the alarm with another hardwired alarm, I recommend the 7010B. It’s a hardwired, battery-backup, and interconnectable photoelectric smoke alarm that I think is better suited to the home than an ionization alarm.
To install it, use wire nuts to connect black to black, and white to white. You won’t be needing the green ground wire from the wall, so put a wire nut on it, and maybe use some electrical tape to keep the wire nut secured to the wire.
As for the red interconnect wire on the 7010B’s harness, there’s usually a rubber cap installed on it from the factory. It’s there so that if you need to interconnect your smoke alarms, you’d pull the cap off and connect it to the red/orange interconnect line in the wall. Since you won’t be using it, just leave that wire alone, no need to cut it.
So - TL;DR:
Disconnect circuit breaker
Remove old smoke alarm from wall; either cutting or disconnecting the wire nuts leading to the existing harness
Follow manufacturer’s instructions for installing the new smoke alarm
White to white, black to black, cap the green ground wire, do nothing with the new interconnect wire
Install alarm to base, including the battery backup
I’d personally go with a 3120B as it’s dual-sensor (ionization & photoelectric), which gives the best possible chance of any fire being detected: we’ve had them in our house for several years & only had one false alarm that was supposedly caused by not cleaning the detectors regularly.
I would not rely on any of Kidde’s detectors or the Nest Protect, especially the latter: both have proven to be extremely unreliable. BRK is the same thing as First Alert though: First Alert’s just a brand name that BRK sells detectors under.
Unfortunately I think in general, residential smoke alarms are anywhere from 20-30 years out of date in terms of technology. It hasn’t really improved much over time, so while more robust system smoke detectors have made leaps and bounds in terms of addressability and the ability to tell the difference between smoke from a fire and cooking smoke, or smoke from steam, and all the rest, residential smoke alarms have remained cheap because they stick to old technology.
I think the 7010B and 3120B are some of the best hardwired smoke alarms available, but that’s unfortunately not saying much. Still better than nothing, though.
I don’t know about their reviews but from what I’ve heard the photoelectric Gentex detectors seem to be really good. I believe The Home Depot sells them.
Gentex sells hardly any smoke detectors anymore: for whatever reason they discontinued pretty much all but one model of detector: the S1209-series. I’ve also never seen any of them for sale at any store.
I’m surprised considering that like I said Gentex doesn’t even manufacture them anymore (at least if you’re talking about any of their discontinued model serieses).
Just the S1209 series is on the website. I have been able to find the detector with the strobe (can’t remember the model) on Amazon though. It seems some are still manufactured under special order.
