Smoke Alarm Will NOT Stop Beeping! X_x

You need to call the alarm company and see if they can fix it from their end. We had a system like that in PA and it was a pain in the butt. I ended up just cutting the wires and getting a regular one that takes batteries.

Three years ago we bought a foreclosure that wasn't well taken care of. Our fire alarm system is also hooked up to the house electrical system and doesn't appear to have batteries in the individual units. About 6 months after buying the house they started to randomly beep and then one night got set off completely at 3am scaring the bejebus out of us.

After determining that there was no actual fire we flew about the house trying to find a way to shut them off. The noise filled the whole house because with our setup, if one alarm goes off, the rest go off as well to make sure you are alerted no matter where you are.

I got on the internet and many people said "CLEAN THE DUST OUT OF THOSE THINGS WITH THE VACUUM CLEANER!" So I tossed the hand held to my husband and I lugged the canister around and we tag teamed the whole house and it worked like a charm.

It's been all quiet on the fire alarm front for about two years now and we have an annual vacuum party to clean the things to make sure that doesn't happen to us again.

Oooh.. I feel your distress.
Ours are hardwired AND have batteries. Blessed 9volts that are like one of those unsolvable puzzles to try and get out and back in again. And they ALWAYS start beeping at midnight or 3 am. Never in the daytime. That would just be too easy.

Last night something was beeping. I just knew it was the blasted smoke detector, but I was surprised b/c it was coming from close by our bedroom. And we had just replaced the battery in it a few months ago. (all the other detectors are in other parts of the house --the master bedroom is separate from all the other bedrooms). It took me a while to figure it out (after moving around the house standing, waiting for the beeps every 4-6 minutes randomly, deciding it wasn't THAT one and moving on)...
It wasn't a smoke detector at all. It was the stupid DIGITAL SCALE in the bathroom! Who knew?!

Ours are hard-wired & still have a battery port. You have to remove them from the ceiling & turn it over.

Also, we've had trouble before with cobwebs & dust in ours. Again, take 'em down, & vacuum them like crazy with whatever crevice tool you might have.

We've had similar issues and one solution or the other has always worked for us.

Good luck!

I bashed one with a broom handle one time until it dangled from the ceiling. It stopped! :). Hubby wasn't too happy with me. That was back when our twins were a few weeks old. I was just a wee bit hormonal and a little tired, too.

I don't recommend bashing it with the broom.

Are you sure they don't have batteries? I manage apartments and the hard wired ones we use have batteries but on the top( remove it from its base on the ceiling and turn it over) if it doesn't I don't know sorry!

Vacuum? I have to vacuum the ones that are attached to my alarm system or they go off. Maybe yours are the same. I know the ones the builder put in got ripped out of the wall when they started beeping, figured since the monitored ones were two feet away they just weren't necessary.

Oh, they are monitored, yeah, the company will have to replace them and they will cost ya. Rip it out of the wall till you have the money.
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Wow guys, the thing plugged into the wall is the transformer. If pulling that out is shutting down your system, ya know, stopping the beeping, your battery back up is not holding a charge. The battery, which is inside the control panel, must be replaced every two years.

I love that you spoke sternly to it. That didn't work?!
You know, we had a smoke detector that wouldn't stop beeping too. Damn thing! AND it was connected to ALL the other connectors in the house. That means 9 (NINE!) detectors would ALL go off at the same blasted time. At 3am. For no reason, since we changed ALL their batteries.
The thing that worked for us.....We took the cover off and put the vacuum hose up and sucked all the "dust" out. Apparently those suckers are sensitive! After vacuuming out 9 detectors (cuz we didn't know which one had the problem) they stopped beeping and screaming at us.
Try that?
L.

YES...even though they are hard wired there is a battery in there. Untwist the cover from the ceiling, unplug the wire at the connector, now you should have the alarm in your hand, in the casing is a battery pouch. Change it. While you are at it, vacuum every crack and crevice you find.

have you tried calling the monitoring company? they should be able to tell you what you have and what you need to do to stop the beeping.

I wish I had known about vacuuming them before I ripped mine out of the ceiling 2 years ago. At 3 a.m., DH is lucky i didn't just burn the house down. Good LORD that is annoying!

We recently found out the detectors in our condo building expire after 7 years and have to be totally replaced. So all of the units have detectors dying off, depending on when the units were completed (our building is 7 years old). Something to think about for you as a possible reason!

This is the most annoying thing ever. It can drive me right out of my own skin! Unfortunately, I had to rip mine down and then hire someone to fix it. I saw your details but are you SURE it does not have a battery? Mine was hard wired too but it still had a battery that demanded to be changed. Otherwise there really shouldn't be a beep. The only other thing I can think of is have you painted recently? Paint fumes set off the alarms too. Good luck!

call the alarm company and tell them it's malfunctioning...to get someone there NOW...that's what you pay them for...

if not - find out which breaker it is tied to and shut that breaker off.

if you don't like that idea - call your local fire department non-emergency number and ask them for help.

Ours was doing that - I checked every smoke detector in the house and couldn't figure out where the beeping was coming from. Try checking the security system. There is a battery backup in the security panel itself, where it plugs into the wall. We unplugged it until we could change the battery there. You're right, it drove me NUTS!!!

Our security main panel was in our master bedroom closet - the plug was really big, and was screwed into the switch plate.

I would try either vacuuming it or blowing it out with canned air (the stuff you clean the computer keyboard with). Also you can try turning off the power (you can just flip the circuit breaker) AND disconnecting the back up battery for the alarm system at the same time. The battery back up is often in the laundry room or whatever room has your main circuit breaker board.

Ball bat.
Sorry, I know that doesn't help much. But for what it's worth, it is what I would do after a week of that nonsense.
Oh! I just remembered- sometimes the fire dept will check them out for you. You could try. (they might have a magic wand :)

Our hardwired ones have battery backup also.

Call the alarm company?

Ours was wired in at our old house but still had a battery back up. It would beep when the battery was going down. Try to find one again by unscrewing it.

Are you able to clean off the connections? Sometimes a little bit of dirt could cause it to go nuts. If it's a whole-house system, there may be a detector in the air conditioning return vent that is going bad, or is dirty. (Duct detectors are not common in residential applications, but you never know?) If worse comes to worst, take the damn thing down and buy a new one (battery operated) tomorrow. Does the alarm company have any suggestions? If it's their system, this won't be the first time they've heard of this issue.

We have one that's part of our house alarm too, and it did the same thing about six months ago. It turned out that the house alarm needed to have its battery replaced. It had been about five years? It was a long-life battery but still needed to be replaced.

The thing is that it's connected to our home's electrical system. The problem was because last year we had Hurricane Irene and then the following freak blizzard, both of which caused us to lose power for a total of nearly two weeks. That used up the back-up power in the battery. Then when we lost power from a couple of lightning storms, the fire alarm part of the alarm started beeping constantly.

Mine is hardwired into the house too, and doesn't appear to have a battery port at first look. However, it unscrews and there's a pop open cover on the inside that hides the battery away. Could try unscrewing it and checking in there.

Maybe look up the model number online and see if there's a manual out there somewhere.

Or...you could go the route we eventually went when we had one that wouldn't stop beeping no matter what. New batteries, shutting off the power...It. Still. Beeped.

Housing wouldn't come out and check it, so..in a fit of sleepless frustration (had kept the adults and kids up for three nights straight), we ripped it from the ceiling, which triggered the alarm, which got the fire department out, which got housing yelled at about not maintaining equipment.

But I wouldn't recommend the second option.

Though...I might pull it again, because new housing....apparently this one hates the toaster. I JUST WANT TO MAKE TOAST! SHUT UP!

The thing is malfunctioning, I had this problem. Just unhook it and buy a new one. Once the malfuntioning one goes off the rest do because the whole house needs to be "notified" meaning every place there's a fire alarm it will go off... safety feature... MAKE SURE THAT ITS ONLY A FIRE ALARM!!! it could be a fire alarm and carbon monoxide detector depending on how old your house is! Carbon monoxide Is very dangerous! You cant see it smell it hear it etc.. but its very deadly!

There might be a short in the wiring. I truly think I would have an electrician who understood the issue come and check the wires behind it before replacing it with another one that might just do the same thing because it's in the wiring.

I literally ripped mine out of the ceiling and hurled it to the ground, and then put it in the trunk of my car.

Yes, that was a highly technical solution. Sorry if you can't follow it. :P

It drives me batty to have something like that in my house.

The more technical things get the less they work and the more they drive us crazy. Sigh.

ETA: And I see I'm not the only one who had them go off at 3 am.

How old is it? The whole thing needs to be replaced every so often.

Ours is hardwired too, but it does indeed have a battery. Double check yours for the battery and if you are correct that it doesn't have a battery, my next suggestion would be to contact your alarm system company. Maybe the system battery pack needs to be changed.