In my experience, replacing the battery doesn't fix this problem. Only putting the fire alarm in the freezer actually takes care of the problem
that means it's time for a new smoke detector because the Americium has depleted to a point it's no longer reactive.
can't afford one? go to any fire station, they will hook you up and make sure you have enough for your house.
Yeah that or the freezer.
Whoosh
My parents have a smoke detector which blinks a red LED every ten minutes or so. It's also placed in the hallway between my room and the toilet. Because that hallway is quite short and a little bit of light still came out of my room, I eventually started just not turning on the lights in the hallway, to kind of preserve the sleepiness.
Well, eventually I walked down that hallway in darkness and was right in front of the smoke detector when it decided to blink, shortly tinting everything around me faintly red. Fucking hell, that spooked me...
Why do short flashes like that work so well in movies or shows? Like imagine an anime where they can create such an eerie moment by flsshing a few frames of something fucked up on a normal moment. I think jujutsu kaisen did it and its so cool. Instead of just showing a demon in plane sight you do it like that. Add some creepy music and youre set for a great scene.
That mean the smoke detector need to be tested. Push the button for testing and the light, after, will be a hard green, no flashling.
No my smoke detector had an 'operational light'. It flashed every 30 seconds or so, so you knew it didn't have a dead CPU or so.
i need an mp3 of the noise for my text/ringer notifications
One of my buddies has a Stream deck button for it. Absolutely drives everyone bonkers
My grandma thought that there was a very intelligent mouse living in her hallway once. It would occasionally do a little squeak at her but never be found. She was a bit cross when she learned the truth about her mousy friend.
I also know of an older couple that was convinced the noise came from an earwig queen(!?!) that lived inside their living room table. Much more concerning story, both if true or false.
Guys it just does that
Yeah, my basement honks!
Mine whispers terrifying stories, occasionally interrupted by the whimpers of a child.
*beep*
We used to have a fancy ass fire alarm system in the 90s and early 2000s. At a couple of points in the house there were detectors, each with a battery, power connected and connected to each other. If one of them detected smoke or heat, they would all start beeping. They would flash every 10 secs to let you know it is in sync, but they would also emit a small beep every 10 mins or so. They never ran out of power since they were connected to mains voltage with a battery backup. The battery was rated to be replaced every 10 years, but I think it was one of those that basically went on forever.
I got used to it after a while, but every now and again I would start noticing the beeps and could not stop noticing them. My dad was proud of them, he paid a lot of money to get them and get them installed.
What kind of madman designs something like this?
A fireman who burned down their own house after pulling the battery out because it kept beeping and the only functional detector was in another room and didn't go off in time. I bet.
I've lived in a place with a fire alarm system like that, but the beep is because the backup battery is flat or the unit needs to be replaced.
Most smoke detectors are essentially a small radioactive lump with a Geiger counter next to it; if smoke gets in between it blocks the radiation and if the number of radiation "hits" falls below a threshold in a set time period the alarm goes off. So, as radioactive things have a half life, there's a point where the radiation emitted falls below the original threshold and you need to replace it. We fucked around with the batteries in ours for ages assuming one of them was low, but eventually replaced the detector itself and the beeping stopped.
Nope these ones did it from the get go. We asked about it when they got installed, it was a feature to let you know they were operating properly. I really to this day don't know why it was like that.
It wasn't a loud beep, when the TV was on, you couldn't even hear it. I only heard it when it was quiet in the house, especially when I wanted to sleep.
I lived near a highway and it was so weird when you started hearing it randomly and it wouldn't go away for 10 minutes. Cars going fast are actually insanely loud.
Reminds me of hopping into Mum's car after several months of not being in it to hear the distinctive grinding metal sound of a bearing on its last legs - asked Mum and my sister when the car started making that noise and got told it always does that...
Ah this was me when I bought my first car... It was super cheap though. But it had just passed the EU control, so I thought it was safe to drive.
Anyway, when I was driving my niece, and her friend, the fucking break disk rusted lose! I drove them fucking carefully to the train, and carefully drove home.
I called my nieces father and confessed, and I asked him how to replace the breaks. He had never done it before, but he's the kind of guy who reads something once and he remembers it. Anyway I drove to a shop and bought new break disks and pads, and some tools, and drove fucking carefully home.
It took me 3 days to change the breaks, mainly because of the rust, I got a neighbor to help push the break piston back in, as the tool I bought was to weak. To top it of, I have either fibriomyalgia or rheumatism, and my fingers hurt for weeks after, even though it was the middle of the summer.
The back breaks needs to be changed now. But I can't do it in the winter, I can't change the breaks in the back when it's below zero outside. Wife just wants to buy a new (used) car, but our budget, due to needing a 6, 7 or 8 seater, would give us the same age, same length driven car. And we need to cars...
Idk of this is satire of the meme on 4chan but I recently saw that there's a meme about black people not changing the battery on their fire alarms. I'm not sure why it was specifically black people though
It ain't just on 4chan i see it all the time in various short form skits on reels, yt shorts, etc.
I read the article someone shared and apparently it was a common joke and a recognized thing in black communities before breaking into mainstream
My job gives me access to lots of people's homes. It's kind of true now that I think about it. Not exclusively but certainly more than average.
It doesn't feel terribly surprising that preventative care for uncommon emergencies would be less common or considered less important in a culture shaped by externally created and enforced poverty
