So a couple of days ago the smoke alarm in our flat started to “chirp” every few minutes. I figured this was probably a warning the battery was going flat, so I replaced it. It still chirped.

Last night I got fed up with it, so decided to disconnect it from the mains and remove the battery, but it still chirped. So I removed it from the ceiling and discovered that the chirping is coming from inside the ceiling. Frustrated I decided that I would turn off that circuit in the fuse box – but still it chirps!

How is this possible?!

there is another smoke alarm in your attic.

this. i spent hours trying to find a chirping alarm once in a rented house once. found it at the bottom of the utility room cupboard.

ha! would be useful to have some control that ‘boosted’ the chirp interval for a while so you could find the offending (as it were) chirping item. sounds like trail_rat has it though..

there was one in the paper a few years back where a couple destroyed a wall looking for the chirp.

it was a smoke alarm in the drawers they moved out the way to get at the wall.

HAHAHAHAHA believe it or not this happened to me. It sent me crazy! I replaced (at great expense) the whole smoke alarm system, first night back upstairs (I had moved into the living room to protect my sanity) beeeeep!!!! I actually cried.
Sure enough in the exact same spot on the other side of the plasterboard there was a dying battery operated alarm. I laugh about it now, but that smoke alarm nearly killed me!

lucky you and your chrrpp.

Last night at exactly 4:07 our smoke alarm decided to sound for 5 seconds. Right in the middle of deep sleep. Scared me half to death. And then the wife made me go and check we weren’t about to go up in a ball of flame 🙁

I reckon something freaked out the ionised particles for a few seconds.

I don’t think there’s another smoke alarm – as we live in a first floor flat, with a flat above us.

I don’t think there’s another smoke alarm

Then it is haunted, yes.

The best thing to do apparently is to find a way of tricking the spirits out of the smoke alarm so that you can catch them in something and take them away. I talked once to a man who swore by leaving a jam-jar with some barbecue sauce in it on the floor under the alarm. Apparently, the smell of the sauce attracts the spirits, which will come out of the alarm to get at the sauce. When they are in the jar, you put a lid on the jar, do it up nice and tight, and ideally solder it shut or something. Then wrap the jar in a bag with some stones to weight it down and drop it into flowing water.

There will be another one somewhere, you will go batshit crazy trying to find it.

Smoke alarms beep.
There is obviously a bird stuck behind your alarm.
Hope this helps.

Stoner – Member
lucky you and your chrrpp.

Last night at exactly 4:07 our smoke alarm decided to sound for 5 seconds. Right in the middle of deep sleep. Scared me half to death. And then the wife made me go and check we weren’t about to go up in a ball of flame

I reckon something freaked out the ionised particles for a few seconds.

Mine did that a few months ago. 5 beeps at the same time. I think its ghosts.

We have 12 of the things linked, and one of them goes off about once every six months, usually in the middle of the night, setting the lot off. It is so loud that is hurts.

They drive me mad.

Set fire to your flat. Its the only way to be sure 😉

But then the alarm would go off.

Not if the battery is on its way out.

But then the alarm would go off.

On the plus side, at least you would be certain the cause…

Oh no, the answer to the problem was much better than you can imagine.

The noise I could hear was not being emitted from ceiling as I thought, nor was it a second smoke alarm.

It was in fact.. the carbon monoxide detector I’d forgotten was in close proximity. Oh, how we laughed.

Thanks all – second alarm was definitely the right answer 🙂

Brilliant.

Welcome back to sanity.