Smoke Alarm

[dkryan]

I need to replace two hard-wired smoke alarms in my mother-in-law's house (yes, I HAVE to; my wife insists).

I can't properly identify this power connection. Everything I've seen has a connection that doesn't remotely come close to mating.

Any ideas?

Maybe I need to remove the current connector and rewire a new one?

The house was built in 2001.

 

[brianl703]

You have to replace all of your hardwired smoke detectors with the same brand or ones that are listed as being compatible in the manual.

You may have to remove that pigtail and wire a new one.

 

[Astro14]

Buy the same brand and they'll plug right in.

Mine looked like that - I bought six new ones at Lowe's and they plugged right in. Don't recall the brand, but there aren't many to choose from.

 

[dbias]

Turn off the circuit and take off the pigtail of the old detector and twist the new connector in.

 

[Wolf359]

That looks like Firex back in the day. But yes, you need to buy new ones, Firex is gone. You could get adapters at one point for various brands but I think they're not worth it, they're almost $5 per adapter, only useful if the town requires that you pull a permit if you put up new smoke alarms. State law now calls for them to be less than 10 years old when the house is sold. You have to use the same brand otherwise the signal on the interconnect is different between brands and when I tried to use a different brand once, it triggered all the other alarms. I would also just get a smoke alarm, the combo carbon monoxide/fire alarms means that you'll definitely be replacing them in 7-10 years, but regular smoke alarms can last more than 10+ years.

 

[AandPDan]

Looks like BRK or First Alert

 

[ecotourist]

I replaced all my interconnected alarms with Kidde brand a few years ago. Had to reconnect them to the house wiring but should be easy from now on.

I have one combined smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector. May have to replace that one sooner than the others.

 

[wkcars]

Pretty sure if you buy a detector it comes with it's own connector and you remove the old one and install the new connector if it's not compatible with the existing. Also might have to install a new mounting plate which should come with the detector as well if it's not the same or compatible with the existing.

 

[JustinH]

Every time I bought new wired smoke detectors, it came with adapters for all kinds of old wiring harnesses.

 

[Malo83]

Just replaced all my old FireX smoke detectors a couple weeks ago with new FireX detectors, the new ones have new connectors, Kidde sells the adaptors for easy hook up, no messing with wiring.

Quick Convert Adapter KA-F2 | Kidde

The quick convert adapter allows for an easy installation of a new Kidde alarm to an existing competitive wiring harness.

www.kidde.com

 

[55hambone]

My home is total electric, so a smoke/carbon monoxide detector doesn't fit my needs. I installed dual sensor (ionization/photoelectric) smoke detectors throughout the house. Photoelectric for smoldering fires, ionization for flaming fires. The half life of the radioactive element in an ionization smoke detector makes it necessary to replace it every 10 years.

 

[methusaleh]

That’s known as a Molex connector, at least in the world of amateur radio.

 

[Vikas]

Like a smart guy (!) I bought 10-yr battery operated talking with locations alarms to replace the hardwired ones. Nothing on the fancy packaging indicated that I can NOT use them instead of hard-wired ones. Only in the installation instruction it was written that those can not be hooked to the electrical box. Now I have to order hard-wired and return zillion of the fancier ones.

 

[Wolf359]

Like a smart guy (!) I bought 10-yr battery operated talking with locations alarms to replace the hardwired ones. Nothing on the fancy packaging indicated that I can NOT use them instead of hard-wired ones. Only in the installation instruction it was written that those can not be hooked to the electrical box. Now I have to order hard-wired and return zillion of the fancier ones.

Yeah, they don't really have hardwired 10 year lithium battery smoke alarms so they're not really required by code yet. Just 10 years on the battery opereated ones. I just like to get the basic Kidde photoelectric alarm. They've been making them for years so they're mostly reliable and don't cost that much. The problem with those combo smoke/carbon monoxide alarms is that when they go bad, you have to throw the whole thing away and they're $50-$70 a pop whereas the basic smoke alarm is $20 and the carbon monoxide alarms can be in the $15-$20 range. They don't always last 10 years, usually something happens after a few years. Sometimes dust gets in them and you can just blow them out, but other times I've had one or two go bad after a couple years.

Kidde Firex Hardwired Smoke Detector with Photoelectric Sensor and 9-Volt Battery Backup 21029883 - The Home Depot

The Kidde FireX P12040 Hardwire inter connectable Photoelectric Smoke Alarm with Battery Backup can act as a stand-alone unit or can be integrated into an existing electrical system. This unit sounds an early warning to alert you and your family of the presence of visible fire particles detected...

www.homedepot.com

 

[Vikas]

My problem with the hardwired is that I do not yet know if there is a fault in house wiring (highly unlikely) or one of the older one has falsely signaled. The relatively newer one (3 year old) in the basement started yelling. Another relatively newer (8 year old) in different area was also yelling but barely. I thought that was the problem unit but after doing some disconnect/reconnect, now I am convinced that somehow the signal wire is telling those detectors to go nuts and most likely the signal is coming from the one of the other seven older detectors or worse signaled by the two from the garage. None of those nine are indicating any trouble but that means nothing as they need to be changed because of their age.

So this was my thinking. I mean nobody tries to debug home CAT5 wiring! So I thought I might as well replace everyone with just 10-yr battery operated and forget about the hardwired ones.

BUT, THAT IS NOT ALLOWED or RECOMMENDED. Definitely can NOT be installed to the existing junction box. The rationale given is that those battery operated will get interference from the close proximity of the existing wires. Besides, if the house came with hardwired, insurance company most likely want to see them replaced by hardwired units.

So now I am going to replace all the house ones with new hardwired units and hope for the best. Then replace the two garage ones. If there is indeed fault in the house wiring, that is goin to be big problem. But how and why suddenly such thing can happen? It was not like we are doing any construction etc.

 

[Wolf359]

My problem with the hardwired is that I do not yet know if there is a fault in house wiring (highly unlikely) or one of the older one has falsely signaled. The relatively newer one (3 year old) in the basement started yelling. Another relatively newer (8 year old) in different area was also yelling but barely. I thought that was the problem unit but after doing some disconnect/reconnect, now I am convinced that somehow the signal wire is telling those detectors to go nuts and most likely the signal is coming from the one of the other seven older detectors or worse signaled by the two from the garage. None of those nine are indicating any trouble but that means nothing as they need to be changed because of their age.

So this was my thinking. I mean nobody tries to debug home CAT5 wiring! So I thought I might as well replace everyone with just 10-yr battery operated and forget about the hardwired ones.

BUT, THAT IS NOT ALLOWED or RECOMMENDED. Definitely can NOT be installed to the existing junction box. The rationale given is that those battery operated will get interference from the close proximity of the existing wires. Besides, if the house came with hardwired, insurance company most likely want to see them replaced by hardwired units.

So now I am going to replace all the house ones with new hardwired units and hope for the best. Then replace the two garage ones. If there is indeed fault in the house wiring, that is goin to be big problem. But how and why suddenly such thing can happen? It was not like we are doing any construction etc.

You have to read the directions on the old smoke alarms. If there's an alarm in one, it triggers all of them. However the one that triggers the alarm will have the red light flashing, the other ones will not. Once you locate that one, you can just swap that one out. I used to just send them back to Kidde as they had a 10 year warranty. Only worth it to send it back first class. I think either insects or dust got into the chambers or they just went bad. Happens after a few years to one or two of them when I have 7 of them. Also do you have the wrong ones in the garage? They should be heat alarms if its unheated. Smoke alarms don't work well when it's under 40 degrees and it could be the triggering one.

 

[Vikas]

The garage ones are the heat alarms but they are also past the 10 year lifetime too.

All the rest of the seven (past their lifetime) are green too. The newer two one which are complaining are NOT plugged in right now.

I am just hoping that one of the seven is so bad and old that it is signaling without changing the LED color or the red LED has burnt out!

Those are all very old Firex alarms and NOT Kidde or 1st Alert. Firex was taken over by one of those two.

 

[Wolf359]

The garage ones are the heat alarms but they are also past the 10 year lifetime too.

The warranty is usually 10 years and the standard recommendation is to replace them after 10 years. I have seen them in use well past 10 years but short of actually testing them in a lab, hard to say if they're really still good. Carbon monoxide alarms used to be good for only 7 years but now they have new ones that go 10 years. Someone bought one of those combo 10 year battery smoke/carbon monoxide alarms and it started beeping as if it was bad after just 2 years. Had to replace it.

 

[Knerml12]

Looks like BRK or First Alert

Agree, the above will plug right in....

 

[Vikas]

My choice is to replace all of them with same brand (already selected 1st Alert) and then just pray.

I never like NOT having ability to verify the incremental work and it is only all or nothing aka swap all of them and then turn the power on approach. But here I don't have any choice.