RichardS wrote:

A few months ago I decided that it was prudent to fit a smoke alarm, much
against the wishes of SWMBO (it's ugly, if it goes off, I'll hit it with a
brush, etc etc).

What I _wanted_ was to get 2 mains interlinked ones with battery backup, and
a "shut up" button in case of nuisance tripping due to smoke from grill
pans, etc. Ideally, it shoudl have also had a 15 second or so warning that
it was about to go off so that it could be overridden before incurring the
wrath of SWMBO who might have been asleep in bed whilst I was burning
toast...

However, enquiries here, online, in electrical wholesalers, etc, indicated
that such a beast did not exist, and for interlinked ones once one had gone
off then the other would operate independently and need resetting
independently if indeed I could find one with "shut up" button.

So, as a stop gap measure I fitted a cheap battery operated one.

Now, this doesn;'t have an override, so the only way to shut it up is to
remove the battery.

When the smoke has cleared, the battery has to be replaced, in which case it
will sound for up to 60 seconds. So, replacing the battery late at night
isn't an option.

Of course this one now will not shut up at all - have left it for 5 mins and
it still continues sounding.

The result? The battery is sitting on the stairs...

Completely useless. In fact, worse than useless - it's modus operandi means
that it's more likely to be left disabled than not.

This one's going back, if I can find the invoice.

So, does my ideal out there exist? if not, why the hell not? A product
that works in a conceptually perfect way but is impractical or irritating
beyond belief in practise is no good whatsoever - surely a pragmatic product
that encourages it's proper use rather than complete disablement isn't too
much to ask?

As I say, grrrr.....


Richard
--
Richard Sampson

email me at
richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk



just a quick delurk in passing :-)
I really got fed up with our smoke alarm going off all the time in our
hallway. We've put in a fireangel detector. It goes between your
lightbulb and socket. If it goes off by accident you just flip your
light switch on and off. Works very well, 'cept the test mode is to turn
the lightswitch on and off quickly. if you do that in the middle of the
night when everyone is sleeping its a bit of a bugger....
SarahH