Smoke Detector Battery Replacement

 

We awoke at 5:30 AM this morning to our Kidde 21006377-N KN-COSM-IBA Smoke and CO combination alarm going off.   Since all eight of our detectors are wired together, the message "FIRE,  FIRE, FIRE" was blasted through the house.

That was enough to rouse me out of bed.  I checked the entire house - no fire.   There were two rounds of that message.  Each round lasted about a minute and they were spaced a few minutes apart.   Then all went quiet for the rest of the day.

We installed those detectors in the summer of 2019 as our previous Kidde detectors were past their expiration date.   Those prior Kidde detectors would say "Battery Low" when the batteries needed replacing, so there was some debate in our household on whether the batteries today were low (and the low battery message is not a part of these new detectors) or whether these new Kidde detectors actually though there was a fire.  My wife let it be known that it didn't matter -we would be replacing the batteries immediately.  Reading the manual,  these detectors would have said "low battery" if it was indeed a battery problem, so they actually were detecting smoke in some manner.

The Kidde AA batteries that were in those detectors were about 2 years old as of now.   My son tested one of them and it wasn't really all that low.  I went to the store and bought Energizer Lithium AA batteries as replacement, and that is what we installed today.  These new batteries have an expiration date of 12-2039, but I think we'll be replacing them in January 2023 just to be safe...we don't want that alarm blaring at us again!

The reason for this post is not because I think you all are super interested in our detectors.  It is here as a reminder to my forgetful self as to when we last changed the batteries, and what batteries we used.

Also note to self:  these new detectors take AA batteries, not 9-volt like the prior detectors!

Smoke Alarm Battery Replacement

This month, we had two of our seven smoke alarms sound the "low battery" alarm, so we replaced the batteries in all seven.

Those batteries didn't even last a year!  They were replaced in April 2018!

The battery on the left is the old battery.  We replaced them on September 27, 2019 with the batteries on the right.  We'll see how long these last...

Smoke Detector Battery Replacement

 Since I can never seem to remember when I last changed the batteries in the smoke detectors in our house, I figured I'd add a blog entry showing when I did it last so I'll have an easy reference in the future.

I need to replace them more regularly because the detectors we have (seven of them) are interconnected and screech loudly when they go off.  When the battery runs low, only the detector with the low battery screeches.  And after the screech, a voice states "low battery".  This wouldn't be so bad (I could replace the battery right away), but every time it has went off, it has been in the middle of the night.  And we have vaulted ceilings, so changing the battery involves digging out a tall ladder.   This week it went off in the master bedroom just after midnight.  We didn't want to dig out the ladder just then, so my wife and I closed the door and slept downstairs.  With earplugs.

The next day when I used the ladder to change the battery, this is the old battery.  A date of March 2017.  But is that a manufacture date or expiration date?  Not sure.

Until we bought new batteries, that had a date of December 2022.  Obviously that date is an expiration date.   If expiration dates are about 4 years out, does that mean I last changed the batteries in 2013?  Ouch! I know I replaced the detectors themselves in 2012 - I have the Amazon receipt.  And I know I replaced the batteries at least one time after that.   That would put us at 2013. Which matches to old battery dates of 2017.  So apparently we got about 5 years out of the old batteries.

One thing is for sure.  I've now replaced the batteries in April of 2018!   And I'll try to replace them again before we get "low battery" in the middle of the night.

Also:  I looked up what "Pile Alcaline" means.  It is "Alkaline Battery" in French.   Interesting.