Greetings Douglas
I'm having false alarms in my apartment. I've been told that the smoke detectors in the hall way can set off the fire horn on the wall. WHAT DOES NOT MAKE SENCE is the horn in my apartment is going off in only 1 or 2 rooms.
I thought it was people smoking in their rooms setting the system off. But it would just set off the detector in their room.
I am stumped as to why they sound off in just a couple rooms.
If you have any thoughts as to why this is happening please let me know.
What gets me on this subject is there are so many false alarms I have become desensitized.
Thank You, DR
I have been on several service calls where the resident thought that the common area fire alarm system was making noise. I found that it was caused by something else, but I was called out anyway.
At issue was that sound emanating from devices, like the common area fire alarm system fire horns, local-to-the-apartment smoke alarms, carbon monoxide (CO) alarms, and even furnace alarms, all sounds the same. It's so bad that no one, myself included, can really just stand in the center of the room and properly point in the direction of the beeping or alarming sound source.
In other words, with their eyes shut and using just their ears, most people can point to a person talking, but almost no one can point to the source of the beeping sound or alarm sound.
Check by Getting Close
I know it's loud. However, the only way to know which device is actually making the sound is to get your ear within a foot or so (about 30 centimeters) of the device think is making the sound, and then listen.
If that device is now much louder than it sounds while you were standing in the middle of the room, that is the device making the sound. If the sound isn't louder, that isn't the device. Check somewhere else.
Keep going around until you've absolutely found the device. Once you've found the device, then make decisions.
False Alarms
Anytime that the building isn't burning down, but the fire alarms are sounding anyway, is time that a "False Alarm" is sounding.
False alarms, as you pointed out, are dangerous. When there are a lot of false alarms, whether the alarms are false-alarms, or the alarms are from real fires, they cause people to ignore the alarms.
False alarms can be in the common area fire alarm system, and false alarms can be in the apartment unit smoke alarms. Remember, a smoke alarm could be bad if it doesn't detect fire; a smoke alarm could be bad if it goes into false alarm.
Yes, the common area fire alarm systems sometimes go into alarm. However, because they aren't paid attention to as thoroughly, the residential smoke alarms in apartments, condos, and homes are a greater source of false alarms.
In an apartment building, if the common area fire alarm system is regularly going into false alarm, the fire department will get tired of coming out to the building. Sometimes, the fire department fines for false alarms are enough for management to fix the common area fire alarm system.
In the apartment only, if the smoke alarms are regularly going into false alarms, the fire department doesn't come, but resident of that apartment still has to deal with the false alarms. A complaint by the resident is about the only way that management even knows that there's a problem. Without passing that information to the management, the false alarms will not get fixed.
Find Out Which System is Sounding False Alarms
Remember, false alarms a really bad thing. Remember, also, that there are two distinct possibilities about which system is going into false alarm.
A person can test to see if a smoke alarm will detect smoke, but the only way of testing if a smoke alarm sometimes goes into false alarm is to replace the smoke alarm.
Before talking to management, find out for absolutely sure which system is going into false alarm: the common area fire alarm system, or the apartment's smoke alarms.
Douglas Krantz
