We purchased a home a year ago, and had to replace all smoke and combination smoke/CO detectors as most were 10 years old, to the month, and they started chirping. I purchased Kidde smoke detectors from amazon and Home Depot, at least a dozen. Now they are false alarming and driving us crazy, as they are interlinked. At this point, they’ve all been removed, so I need to do something to solve this issue and keep my family safe and not going to bed with PTSD.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a brand, or brand/model that is more reliable and doesn’t false alarm, and/or has a latch feature so you can see after they’ve stopped screaming which one caused all of them to start screaming and shouting?
As I’ve told other people, BRK/First Alert is the way to go, particularly their 3120B AC/DC & SA320/SA320B/SA320CN DC units due to having dual smoke sensors (ionization & photoelectric, thus giving the detectors the best chance of sensing a fire & sounding the alarm). They also have a test button that doubles as a silence button (which is standard on a lot of detectors nowdays but see above points) & a function that intermittently illuminates the LED of whatever detector activated after they stop sounding (thus allowing you to identify the instigator). I’d say going by my experience with them that they’re fairly reliable: simply clean them on a regular basis & they’ll stay quiet when nothing’s wrong (as any good smoke detector should).
Thank you for your fast response. I’ll look into them. It seems the 3120B is discontinued, but I’ll see if the others are still available. There may still be sale though. Thanks again.
Sure thing! Yes, I believe the 3120B can for some reason no longer be purchased directly from BRK/First Alert, but you should still be able to find it for sale elsewhere I think (including Amazon of course).
Yeah first alert/brk is the best, stay away from anything with the Kidde, Codeone and fireX names.
First alert just released new alarms for new UL requirements. If you can find the 3120Bs I’d recommend them for bedrooms. I highly recommend the SC7010BV outside bedrooms, however any first alert hardwired smoke and co alarm are also pretty good. Though it depends on how much you want to spend on smoke alarms, what locations you have to place alarms and how many alarms you need.