Curse of the Battery Powered Alarms

[Guest MarkP]

Quite a few earlier posts in other sections have mentioned the curse of 9V smoke alarms bleeping and being blamed on the alarm panel.

Here's a similar story that's probably best put down to experience.

It started with a phone call from an elederly couple, the conversation went something like this:

Customer: There something wrong with our alarm, it keeps bleeping.

Me: What sort of bleep is it?

C: Well about very minute there's a high pitched beep.

M: That sounds like your smoke alarm rather than the burglar alarm, have you checked the batteries?

C: It's definitely the burglar alarm, anyway we only changed the batteries on the smoke detector a couple of months ago.

<Bleep>

M: Well it certainly sounds like the smoke alarm. Please could you try taking the battery out and we'll see if it stops.

C: <Grumbling> Ok, but I'm telling you it's the alarm. Right I've taken the battery out of the smoke detector

<Wait>

<Bleep>

C: See I told you it was the alarm!

M: Ok put the battery back in the smoke detector, I'll come round.

(I know full well that the panel they have never makes a sound like this but don't see what else I can do.)

Arriving at the house it's not long before we hear the bleep. The customers almost seem pleased: "see I told you there was a problem!"

I now spend the next 10 minutes waiting for each bleep and taking a step nearer to the source each time. Eventually we arrive in the kitchen, <beep> .

M: Is that a Carbon Monoxide detector next to the boiler?

C: Yes, the man from the gas board said we needed one.

M: Well it looks like the battery is in need of replacement!

Sure enough changing the battery stops the bleeping!

Sometimes you just can't win them all.

Nowadays I always try to encourage people to have a 12V smoke detector fitted as part of their alarm system. Almost everyone has suffered the beeping in the middle of the night as the battery runs down and when I explain how it won't go into alarm every time they grill some bacon they can usually see what a good idea it is.

Of course I don't usually tell them that by throwing out their chepo 9V B&Q detector they are probably also saving me a call out at some god forsaken hour!

MarkP

[Guest TONIC]

yep that has happend to me as well

only thing was the 2 hour drive to the job

11pm at night and the customer refused to pay the call out fee.

[Deltaseven]

I had a similar call out, and the customer was not happy about paying the call-out fee - especially given that she decided not to take out a maintenance contract, so her call out was heftier than usual...

Managed to reach a compromise by replacing the battery in the smoke detector for her - and charging her £10 for the battery ON TOP of the call out. And she was happy with that?!?

[Chris Teague]

Been there, done that several times too. There are some people in this world who I would not trust with the remote control to a TV, let alone install an alarm system for them. If they don't want to pay the call out, I'll find something to change next visit!!

[Guest alarmrepairs]

yep this has happened to me. They forgot about the smoke detector still in packet in cupboard took ages to trace it

Baz