In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
ronald wrote:

Do smoke alarms get more sensitive as they get older? Mine is about
18 years old. It still works in fact I just put a new battery in it a
month ago.
My wife has a steam generator iron and if she does not open all the
windows in the room she is using it the alarm will go off, most
annoying as she has stopped ironing now. At least I'll get a cup of
coffee.The alarm is in the hall, not where she is ironing, but we
have a vent above the door which does not help.

It is pouring with rain just now and the humidity is quite high so I
think because of that and also the high temperature that is what is
making it go off.

When I think about it the alarm seems to go off more now than it did
before.
Anyway I would buy a new alarm but if the new one is going to go off
when there is steam instead of smoke there is no point. So is there a
specific type of smoke alarm that is less sensitive to steam or all
they all basically the same?

Ron

You could try cleaning it out! They work by measuring the opacity of the air
passing through them - smoke (and steam) passing a lot less light than fresh
air. When they get full of grot and dead flies etc., they can think they're
seeing smoke when they're not.

If you *do* buy a new one, get one with a silencing button[1] so that - if
it does go off erroneously - you can easily silence it.

I recently needed to replace the smoke alarm in my caravan. Frying the
breakfast or toasting bread in a caravan is guaranteed to set off the
alarm - so it's important to have one with a silencing button. Amazingly,
none of the ones sold by my local caravan dealer had such a button - but
Argos came to the rescue.

[1] All alarms have a Test button - but the silencing button is an extra one
which silences it for a few minutes. If the smoke - or whatever - is still
there after a few minutes, it starts sounding again
--
Cheers,
Roger
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