"Roger" wrote in message
...
Hi all, I like to heat only the rooms we spend time in during the winter
with space heaters. Now that it's getting colder I have the problem of
the household smoke detecters going off at night. It only happens in
the colder months. Anyone know why this is?

Thanks,
Rog

Usually a low battery makes it blip once in a while not false alarm, it
could be a battery but it shouldn't be.

I get false alarms on cool mornings when the shower is used (30 ft away in
MBR with bathroom door closed). Seems the detector cools to room temp
overnight which is typically cool and the steam makes its way (not much
either as it is not noticeable) to the photoelectric detector and condenses
where it sets off the alarm. I either need to pull out the battery or hold
it over an electric space heater to warm it up to make it stop (pressing the
button only works for a minute).

My detector is only a few months old and has 3 way detector (ionization,
photoelectric and CO) which is supposed to cut down on false alarms but it
does not.

Is there a source of water vapor near the detector like a coffee maker,
unvented gas space heater (!) or do you have steam radiators and the
thermostat turns them on just before the false alarm.

If you think it might be this, use a detector with an ionization detector
instead of photoelectric.

Also, smoke detectors have a 5-10 year life. Yours might just be too old.