Hilarious coincidence...

[Ree]

...or excellent timing.

I was cooking supper tonight, and as usual, my smoke detector started going off.
It quite often does that because I think it may be installed a little too close to the stove area.

In this case, though, the cooking spray that I used on the tray for the chicken had started to burn a bit and smoke.

I had hit the hush button on one smoke detector, and then the other one started going off.

This was all happening as I was talking to my sister on the phone.

Just as I had hushed the second one in the hallway, there was a knock on the door.

I had the phone to my ear, talking to my sister as I opened the door, and standing on my doorstep were two fireman in their official dress uniforms.
They just happened to be doing their annual smoke detector inspection.

How ironic is that?

My sister started laughing at her end of the phone, and I started laughing, too.

She said, "'ll let you go and talk to them."

It turns out they had heard my smoke detectors as they were coming down the street, and they wondered what the heck was happening.

They gave me some good advice about the smoke detectors, but they were happy to see they were in working condition.

Needless to say, I didn't get one of the free ones they were handing out to people without smoke detectors.

[fireheart]

That is pretty funny

In our case, it's become law in Australia for all homes to have a smoke detector of some description. (at least I think it's nation-wide)

[BookstoreEscapee]

I was cooking supper tonight, and as usual, my smoke detector started going off.

Isn't that how you know it's ready?

[Ree]

LOL...I jokingly refer to it as my kitchen timer.

[Giggle Goose]

LOL...I jokingly refer to it as my kitchen timer.

Me too Unforunately, I'm not joking most of the time

It's a good thing that smoke detectors are manufactured to beep periodically when they need new batteries. It annoys me so much I have to change it.

[Sonoma]

It's a good thing that smoke detectors are manufactured to beep periodically when they need new batteries. It annoys me so much I have to change it.

Why is it that in my dorm room and my apartment, every time the battery started to fail, it was always in the middle of the night???

Anytime between 3 & 5 in the morning...if the battery was going out, it had to be when I was trying to sleep.

[MergedLoki]

the smoke detector in my upstairs hallway goes off EVERY summer if it's really humid out.

AHHH. and then it wont turn off (older one without those 'auto silence' buttons on it i have to wave a mag or something at it to get 'clean' air at it so it shuts the hell up. anyone else have this issue? lol

[Dreamstalker]

At times, ours will tend to not actually go off, but the red light will be blinking like it's about to (usually right after I've made something in the toaster oven). Drives me crazy; I'm not sure if I should ignore it or grab the cat carrier. I think it's been hypersensitized by the Febreeze and citrus air freshener mom will spray around near them (sensor gets gummed up). We'd like to smack the builder who likes door-less kitchens...I've told mom that even a noren curtain might help, but she doesn't want one.

They'll also go off if it's too hot/humid out. Of course the fire department are the only ones who can silence the ones in the stairwells.

My mom used to have a tiny one-bedroom...and the smoke detector was directly over the stove (even in my crackerbox it wasn't right in the kitchen!). She'd invite me over for dinner a lot, mainly because I was tall enough to wave a dishtowel at the sensor to get it to keep quiet.

[InsanityInc]

I had one for a while that every time I turned on the oven it would meep It was about 15 foot from the kitchen, in a hall, and 2 corners from the oven.

I complained about it to my mom and my grandpa (his rental house) trying to get one of them to buy me a new one. (Didn't have the spare cash to get one myself). Took until my mom was over for dinner one night and it meeped at her. She's sitting there listening to it going She finaly realized what I had been talking about it being too quiet.

[Dreamstalker]

The smoke detector in my place would go off if I so much as sprayed air freshener anywhere in the room (high ceilings, so it was a royal PITA to get to as I had to haul out the ladder). It was also not hardwired, which I believe around here is a violation.

The CO detector...it went off when it wasn't needed (simply turning on the stove) and didn't go off when it was needed (problem with the gas in the building; luckily it happened during the day and I smelled it first).

[BookstoreEscapee]

the smoke detector in my upstairs hallway goes off EVERY summer if it's really humid out.

When I was in college, the smoke detector on the opposite end of the hall was set too close to the bathroom door, so every time someone opened the door when the showers had been going, letting out a cloud of steam, the alarm would go off. They had to make sure to prop the door open a few inches to keep all the steam from rushing out all at once.


I remember once when I was about 8 years old, I was getting ready to go to my dance lesson, and my dad and my uncle were in the basement. My dad had put some bread in the toaster, and it started to smoke, but it hadn't made it out into the hall to set off the detector. The kitchen was filled with smoke, though, and I had to walk through it to get my dad from the basement. No fire, though, luckily.

[Chromatix]

A CO (carbon monoxide) detector doesn't detect gas leaks (which are butane/propane/methane mixes). It detects poor combustion from an incorrectly operating gas hob or fireplace or stove.

Carbon monoxide is odourless and poisonous, which is why it needs a machine to detect it. Gas has methane in the mix *precisely* because it smells bad, and is therefore detectable by most humans.

If your CO detector activates whenever you turn on the oven, perhaps there's something wrong with your oven. If not, just move it further away.

Now as for my escapades with smoke alarms... I had an alarm in every room of a house I had a while ago. One day, my mother managed to set fire to my kitchen... well, she'd left a frying pan with a little oil on a lit hob and then gone outside. Every single one of the smoke alarms went off, *except one* which I later determined (by holding a smouldering newspaper up to it) was faulty. The fire put itself out a few seconds after I turned the hob off - one big advantage of gas hobs.

No wonder I never liked my mother's cooking. I at least never set fire to anything...

[Dreamstalker]

The problem that I related turned out to be a building-wide issue, and my smelling my stove that day was probably coincidental.

[Utter_iMADNESS]

Not sure if this should be in a seperate thread but sine this is about smoke detectors i think it shouldn't be a problem.

I really prefer having the smoke decector close to the kitchen. When my family and I moved into our last apartment we asked why there wasn't a smoke detector near the kitchen. THey said that people found it annoying when it would go off while they were cooking. This was understandable so we never really thought about it after that.
The appartment was an end unit and was basically a long corridor with the kitchen, living room, and main door at the end. THe smoke detector was placed at the opposite end of the hallway to be nearer to the bedrooms.
But one day my mom put some oil on a pan when she got a call. SHe went onto the balcony with my sister and forgot about it. I was in my bedroom at the other end of the hallway right next to the smoke detector. Of course the oil caught fire as did the cupboard and other parts of the kitchen. Luckily my sister noticed the smoke and brought it to my mom's attention. Fortunately we all made it out safely.
NOw the problem is that even though the appartment was filled with smoke the smoke detector never went off during the whole ordeal since it was very far away. If my sister hadn't noticed then the fire would have spread to the area in front of the main door which is right next to the kitchen. This would've blocked the hallway trapping me in the corridor on the 6th floor.

Only after all this did they finally decide to put smoke detectors near the kitchen. Alas it was too late for us. We've moved to a house now and are very wary about possible fires. We have a smoke detector near the kitchen and one on every floor. Every room in the house also has a class A, B, and C fire extinguisher. Now everytime the smoke detector goes off when we're cooking something we feel much better knowing that we'll quickly be alerted to a fire.

[Ree]

This new smoke detector is in exactly the same spot as the other one.
With the other one, it only went off if something actually burned or started to smoke.
With this new one, it goes off every time I try to cook anything unless I turn on the vent hood above the stove. Even at that, if I overcook it a bit, but not actually burn it, the smoke alarm starts wailing.