Why is it that smoke detectors always seem to get low battery warnings in the middle of the night?

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slo town

slo town

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The subject line says it all, or so it seems in our house. At 3:30AM this morning I had to get a ladder to reach the smoke detector in our vaulted ceiling living room. And my ladder was outside, way outside, in our very large backyard because of a project I'm working on. So, I stormed outside in nothing more than slippers, sans a single fiber of clothing, to retrieve it. It's amusing now but it wasn't at the time.

I try to replace batteries yearly but I guess I forget. Necessary devices but it's annoying when they do this.

Scott
 
My first thought was that is totally odd behavior during a snow storm....then I saw your location. Not so odd after all!;)
 
i would doubt this probably just coincidence.. could have some kind of counter in the circuitry that runs "say every 12hrs" to diagnose the unit and check battery and it just happens that way.
 
Sometimes they go off during the day, sometimes it’s the night.

If my math is right, usually it’s about a 50/50 chance. 🧐
 
Some of the newer ones come with internal, non-replaceable batteries that are supposed to be good for 10 years.
 
gman2304 said:
My first thought was that is totally odd behavior during a snow storm....then I saw your location. Not so odd after all!;)
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I got down to 34 degrees last night, balmy I suppose compared to other parts of the world. Although not usually a man thing, my headlights were on by the time I got back in the house. I should have sent my wife out for the ladder! :)

Scott
 
Murphy's law and all.

*

One night I woke up and heard an alarm chirp. Got up, went downstairs, could not find. Went back to bed and heard it chirp again. Repeat. Third time I stayed downstairs for 15 minutes, waiting for the @#$ thing to chirp. It didn't.

Went back to bed and ... chirp. What the heck! Turns out, my window was open and it was the neighbors alarm chirping. The sound came across the road, through my window, and bounced towards me. Rolled onto my side, no longer in the path, and went back to sleep.
 
I attribute it to Murphy's law. Happens all the time to me. My workplace walk-in cooler alarms only go off on weekends and/or between 2 -4 a.m.. Our greenhouse alarms only go off when my co-worker and I are out-of-town together on a field project. My workplace tractor only breaks down on Friday afternoon, about 4:30 p.m. while raining, LOL.

Edit: Dang, Supton beat me by seconds! Murphy's law again!
 
slo town said:
The subject line says it all, or so it seems in our house. At 3:30AM this morning I had to get a ladder to reach the smoke detector in our vaulted ceiling living room. And my ladder was outside, way outside, in our very large backyard because of a project I'm working on. So, I stormed outside in nothing more than slippers, sans a single fiber of clothing, to retrieve it. It's amusing now but it wasn't at the time.

I try to replace batteries yearly but I guess I forget. Necessary devices but it's annoying when they do this.

Scott
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YEAH !
and
 
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I’m surprised you can hear it lol. When I sleep I sleep very heavily and don’t hear anything and then when I wake up I can’t go back to sleep for awhile lol so that would of sucked for me. Ours doesn’t go off very often it has a few times I change the batteries about every 2 years.
 

Why is it that smoke detectors always seem to get low battery warnings in the middle of the night?​

So true! 😄

PandaBear said "My guess is the battery resistance increase when temperature decrease, which is in the middle of the night."
That is a good explanation.
 
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