Ei144 wont stop beeping!

[Tom Sutton]

I was woke up in the early morning, by a low battery warning from my smoke detector in the hall the other day, got up and removed the battery and pressed the hush button, but the warning continued, so I looked in the front room and found a CO detector singing merrily, changed the batteries and went back to bed happy. I was convinced it was the smoke detector in the hall.? 

[Guest Roxxy]

Hi ,

Yes the exact same issue at 530am? In the end removed the casing and took out the battery it was still beeping and so I gave up and decided to use my time awake wisely by looking for solutions online. Low and behold what should happen as Harry the very smart man suggested , the battery pack simply made a kind of battery dying sound and the chirping ended. As Harry had said earlier in the above posts some residual battery power does remain and can continue the chirping for a short time before it completely depletes. 

[Tom Sutton]

If you remove the smoke detector from the ceiling and press the hush button that will fully discharge the battery.

[Guest Emily]

Ei44 Heat Alarm and my 3am Wake Ups

I enjoy a good rave as such as the next person, but maybe not so much when it's unsolicited and commencing at 3am to just the single track of shrill beeping emitted from our Heat Alarm. The alarm of course has other ideas and decided that this must to an almost weekly event. Lucky us.

There seems to be at least three rules to this occurrence:

• it absolutely has to be the middle of the night.
• myself and my partner must have something to get up for the next day.
• the alarm will not listen to reason.

Waking up in a blind panic, we normally arm ourselves with towels for wafting, and a stool to actually reach the damn thing. Even though we press the hush button our detector cheerily ignores this command and either continues with its jaunty tune or simple pauses for breath (a minute if we're lucky) before diving right back into its late night anthem. Tonight we had the added bonus of our upstairs neighbour screaming "TURN OFF YOUR F***ING ALARM" which was a pleasant feature in our late night soundtrack.

A lot of the information we've found online seems to centre around the two types of smoke detectors but I can't seem to find much on the heat detector which seems to hog this spotlight act. I was wondering what possible causes there would for this to happen as it hasn't been complaining of a low battery and our letting agent assured us that the batteries had been replaced prior to us moving in just three months ago. There is no obvious reason for the alarm going off, one running theory is that there's a hot water pipe installed in the floor above it but I'm sceptical. I just don't see why it would be set off? And I especially don't see why it doesn't seem to obey its reset function.

Please Help.

[Safelincs]

Hi Emily, smoke and heat alarms love to go off in the middle of the night when the temperature is at its lowest and the backup battery voltage drops as a result of the low temperatures. If your battery is on the end of its lifespan, this is one way - but a very painful way - of finding out. I would recommend that you pro-actively exchange batteries every year or two to avoid this.

You ought to check the age of the heat alarm. The alarms need replacing every ten years otherwise they can become erratic. See here how to remove the alarm and check the age. There is a replacement alarm for the Ei144 heat alarm.

Harry

 

 

[Guest Sarah]

My alarm has been beeping every minute all night I reset and switched it off at fuse no luck 

[Safelincs]

Hi Sarah, switching the alarm off at the fuse makes things worse as the alarm not only has a low battery warning but also ants to tell you about the power interruption.

The best approach is to either change the backup batteries once a year as a pre-emptive step or to change your alarms to smoke alarms with trickle charging of the batteries. If you currently have the Ei140 series (with alkaline batteries) you can buy new Easichange Ei160 series alarm heads which slide staright onto the existing base and have trickle-charged backup batteries that last the entire life of the alarm.

Harry

[Guest Matt]

Can anyone answer this please??

Instead of waking whole family up I have stopped the beeping by inserting screwdriver 

obviously this will I imagine disable the alarm but means I don’t have to turn mains off etc till the morning 

 

is it safe to leave it like this for a couple of hours with mains on?

yours hopefully at 4am

matt

[Tom Sutton]

Apart from being a idiotic thing to do inserting screwdriver into a live piece of electrical apparatus, why didn't you just remove it from its base and change the battery, that was most probably was all that was needed.

Spending an hour to sort it out would have been more sensible than taking actions that could put you asleep for a very long time.

[Guest Susan]

Please help we have deta smoke alarms 5 years old we have had beeping and neighbours told us to change carbon monoxide alarm we have done this today. We have also changed all batteries in smoke alarms. As soon as I switch smoke alarms on at mains they are going off . I have had to switch off so now have no protection . I have tried everything suggested hoovered etc switched mains in and off please help . ?

[Safelincs]

Hi Susan, If it is not the battery or other devices in the room it might be that the alarms are contaminated by dust (eg if they are the optical version) or simply faulty. Next step should be to check whether the alarms are still under warranty and to contact the manufacturer.

If all else fails the affected alarms need replacing. There are Deta replacement smoke alarms available. There are manufactured by the OEM. 

Harry

[Guest Susan]

Thank you harry 

we identified one rogue alarm after taking out the battery then turning on the main power, the alarms stopped and all showed green light . So we have ordered the new replacement smoke alarm . All good thank you for your help ??

[Guest Karen]

We had new smoke alarms fitted yesterday mains ones all ok until midnight then one has started to chirp already. Any ideas it’s driving us crazy !  Had to reset it twice. 

[green-foam]

"Chirping" (once every 60 seconds) is a sign that its back up battery is flat.

Although it is a new smoke alarm I would still suggest you change its battery

[Guest Chirping Base]

Just as a note for this, I came across this when trying to find out why the 'base' of my heat detector kept beeping.  I had turned off mains and removed and replaced batteries on all linked detectors with brand new Duracell 9v's.  While all of the detecors where down, and discharded of power, there was still a beeping coming from the heat detector base in the kitchen.  Took me a while before I inspected it further, thinking it was something weird going on, but it turns out that this "base" is actually an RF Interlink Base, with it's own sealed lithium battery, which in fact does have it's own sounder on it (RF Interlink Base Model: DS700RF).  Due for replacement in 2022, which is just around the corner.

Point is, sometimes the sound IS coming from the base.

[Guest ahavalyssa]

I have this exact model and I’ve taken the part that removes off, taken battery out and there is something at the base that is wired into my ceiling is beeping clearly. My electrician said that this is bc it is “online” – that somehow it is Bluetooth or wirelessly communicating with some sort of hub somewhere. This beeping has happened before and I —as I mentioned—had have our electrician come out and fix it. He said the manual would explain it all to me if it ever happened again and here I am and I still can’t figure it out.
 

But anyone who tells you that the base can’t possibly be be making a sound because there’s nothing in the wiring – they’re wrong – it’s happening to me right now. In fact, it has been happening for a long time and it’s about to drive me mad. I can’t make it stop and my family is going crazy. This  object is garbage. I do not need a hardwired Bluetooth fancy a smoke alarm…I would be fine with an old fashion smoke alarm with a battery in it; I don’t need these problems keeping me up all night with this incessant sound. 

thanks for listening

[Guest Natalie]

My son is in the middle of  exams. He was exhausted before the alarm kept us awake all night. 

I can't reach the alarm because its on the ceiling midway up some  steep stairs. It's been beeping for 8 hours now. 

How long will it beep for until the battery runs out? 

[Harry]

Hi Natalie, depending on the sort of alarm this could go on for a very long time. Please see here for instructions of how to replace the Ei144 battery  https://www.safelincs.co.uk/videos/37/ei144-heat-alarm-battery-replacement/ or to remove the alarm https://www.safelincs.co.uk/videos/12/remove-an-ei144-heat-alarm/  

 

Harry

[Guest Jack]

I have an ei144 heat alarm and that would not stop chirping even after I replaced the battery.

I ended up buying a replacement ei144 and placed that on the existing mount with a new battery and…that one started chirping too!

I can remove the alarm and press the test button to drain the battery, and that will stop the beeping. But that doesn’t help me with getting it back up and working.

I’m at a loss, why would two separate alarms chirp? Could it be something to do with the base? Or bad wiring?

[green-foam]

If it does not chirp when not connected to the base, then it could be caused by another device that is connected that has a nearly low battery.

I would take all the other interconnected devices down, put the heat alarm back, then check the other devices battery age and put them back one by one.

[Guest DonGilders]

In the garage, and above, we  have 3 interconnected heat alarms that until a few weeks back had been working fine - batteries changed a couple of months back.

 

Now, two of the alarms (in the garage store and stairwell) show green power and red blinking at 1 sec intervals. The third, in the garage, shows green and a flickering red. Occasionally the third random beeps.

 

I bought a replacement Ei144 Heat alarm and slid it on to the garage alarm base and tested the horn OK. I reconnected the power and the new alarm still had red flicker, and the other two had red blinking at 1 sec intervals.

 

Any help would be appreciated? Please could you confirm that the base does nothing but conduct the power and interconnection?

[green-foam]

On 23/06/2023 at 15:23, Guest DonGilders said:

Please could you confirm that the base does nothing but conduct the power and interconnection?

It seems it depends which base you have. I googled and found a base that has a "hidden" battery (But I can not find a definitive answer.)

The only other thing I can suggest is call Aico direct, it would also be appreciated if you could post back with the results.

[Guest Ed Addis]

Can I just clarify one thing please?  If the alarm beeps and you remove the detector from the base and change the battery, will it still beep until it's re-fitted and powered up again?

[green-foam]

Aico smoke alarms disable the battery when the smoke alarm itself is removed from the base. Doing this means the smoke alarm is non functional