A cautionary tale
Sometimes a small job just wants to take over the world. This is a tale of putting new batteries in a carbon monoxide detector.
Batteries installed in anything that makes a noise when they are getting low always fail in the middle of the night, in winter. They all sound the same, so one ends up with frozen naked feet, trying to determine which of seventeen possible culprits is making the noise which is stopping everyone from sleeping. Actually, this is not just fate playing a nasty game; batteries don’t work as well in the cold, so a marginal battery is more likely to fail on a cold night when the furnace is set for sleeping temperatures.
Be that as it may, I was thinking I should change the two AA batteries before I did the “standing next to some device waiting for the next beep to see if it was this one failing” routine. And I was quite proud of myself for acting on this impulse and doing something about it. Actually, my daughter wanted to dust the light fixtures and had asked for the ladder, so I thought I would kill two birds with one ladder trip.
This time I remembered that the batteries could be changed without removing the detector, and got them out easily. What I forgot was to memorize which way the batteries went in, so I spent 10 minutes at ceiling level with a flashlight, trying to find some notation to give me a clue. Eventually, I found a 2mm “+” sign on one side. Naturally, it was raised white plastic on a white plastic background, on the side I couldn’t see from my position on the ladder. Got them in, closed the door to the battery compartment, and the thing starts yelling at me to press the test button. So I do so. Remember I’m still standing on a ladder, with my head at ceiling level. It’s a 9’ ceiling, and the stairs down to the main floor are conveniently located so as to give anyone who falls off the ladder a really bad day.
Fire and pestilence
Of course, the thing starts its 85db wake-up call which consists of enumerating all of the perils for which it tests. “Fire! Carbon monoxide! Pestilence! Locusts! Earthquake!” it yells in my ear, aided and abetted by my new hearing aid, so I didn’t miss any. OK, the last three perils may be in my imagination, but it certainly repeated it all in French jut for good measure.
So, all well and good it appeared, except some little time later, there was a chirp, which I ignored. After a while, I realized that ignoring it wasn’t working, so I fiddled with the batteries, and even found a legible “+” and “-” which was cleverly covered up by the tape used to get the batteries out easily. The batteries turned out to be properly installed and the chirp didn’t stop even with the batteries removed. It was something else. Google time! Not only to find out how to stop the chirp, but also to discover how to get the darn thing down, because it wasn’t coming off with a gentle twist, and I half remembered something about a ”tamper-resistant” feature which I didn’t want to break, but I did want to tamper.
Eventually I got it down, and with the batteries out and the thing unplugged the chirp stopped. The downloaded manual said that a single chirp every 30 seconds meant I had to call support. Naturally, this was at the beginning of a weekend.
Ten years already?
However, there was something we could do, because while I was up the ladder I could see that the plain old (non-talking) smoke detector said we should replace it in 2021, and a quick look at my notes established that the other two on other floors were due for replacement also. The missus proved her worth by ordering replacements online, for pick-up. The battery change was becoming a larger project, but not too bad, as these things just screw on and off, with the power connection was made with a universal plug. Or so I thought.
Come Monday I called support. The rep listened to all the beeps and burps and pronounced it dead. A replacement was made under the 10 year warrantee. The other replacements were picked up, and once the shipment arrived, I was back up the ladder, which had now been in the upstairs hall for over a week. Out with the old, lickety-split. In with the new. Pushed the test button (from the floor with a long stick, this time) same messages of doom and famine and then: blessed silence, no chirp.
I moved the ladder over two feet to the next detector… wait, there are two detectors next to each other? Well, my best guess is that building codes required a smoke detector and a CO detector, and back in 2003 they didn’t have combined detectors, so, yes, two. I moved the ladder over two feet to the next detector took the old one off and went to plug in the new. It seemed to be the same pin configuration, but the new one wouldn’t stay on. So I would have to attach the replacement power connector. Which meant turning off the power. Which also turned out the lights in my daughter’s room and bathroom. Which delayed the project until she next went to work.
Today I completed the project, all three floors. The ladder was down in the basement and finally out of the way. I tested the basement detector and it worked. I went up to the main floor and the light was blinking instead of solidly on. So I got the ladder again and turned the thing a bit more – that did the trick, and the test worked. Should I take the ladder to the top floor just in case, or not? I dragged it up there and of course it wasn’t needed, so down it went. Four detectors all replaced and working.
Sleeping dogs lie?
Incidentally, I tested the original batteries that I had started to replace. Of course, they were fine. I also looked at the power connectors I had replaced. I hadn’t seen they had two prongs which had to be pushed in to remove them properly. The way I did it broke off tiny tabs which held it on. So is the moral of the story “Leave sleeping dogs lie” or “Better safe than sorry”? I’m going with the latter. If I hadn’t started, who knows when I might have re-read my notes to see the smoke alarms had expired, and maybe the CO detector had already failed.
Besides, I got this post out of the situation, and if you’ve read this far, presumably you got something out of it too!
