On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 14:22:49 GMT, "Jacque Asse"
wrote:

With a battery-operated alarm located in a central hallway on 2nd floor of a
townhouse. Alarm goes off with no apparent reason (no fire, no smoke
source, no heat source).

That you can see.

Alarm stayed on steady for few minutes but then
shut off. Any suggestions as to what may cause this apparent false alarm?

You don't know it is a false alarm.

How do you tell if there is smoke? With a smoke alarm. Get a new
second smoke alarm of the same sort (ionic or photoelectric) and put
it up close to the first one. Then compare the results.

A neighbor of mine thought their alarm, also on the ceiling of the
second floor hall, was going off for no good reason, so they removed
it. A few weeks or months later a fire burned out their whole
kitchen, with smoke damage to the rest of the house and water damage
in the basement from the fire department.