Wireless Interconnected Smoke Alarms

[BrotherBart]

Having had a major grease fire in the kitchen last year and a false alarm situation the year before and my invalid wife in the bedroom upstairs never hearing the smoke alarms I have been looking for an answer. I think I have found it with interconnected wireless smoke detectors. Additionally since I have a stove in family room as well as the basement office along with a computer equipment room down there that would run most ISPs I have always been concerned about a fire down in the basment.

Today I installed wireless interconnected smoke detectors on all three floors and they are pretty slick. If any one of them goes off they all go off.

Not cheap, $150 for three, and not foolproof but a little more peace of mind.

 

[velvetfoot]

I saw them when I was shopping around for a combo co/smoke detector I could backfit in my existing hardwire system.
Pretty slick. Beats trying to fish wires on three floors.
It's First Alert, right? Are any of them CO too?

 

[BrotherBart]

I got the Kidde battery units and left the regular hardwired detectors in place. I didn't see any interconnected CO units but I am sure they must exist. We have AC CO detectors on each of the three levels.

Come to think of it, I left all of the existing smoke and CO detectors in place. Any smoke gets into this house and we may get burst ear drums from the racket.

 

[Gooserider]

Having had a major grease fire in the kitchen last year and a false alarm situation the year before and my invalid wife in the bedroom upstairs never hearing the smoke alarms I have been looking for an answer. I think I have found it with interconnected wireless smoke detectors. Additionally since I have a stove in family room as well as the basement office along with a computer equipment room down there that would run most ISPs I have always been concerned about a fire down in the basment.

Today I installed wireless interconnected smoke detectors on all three floors and they are pretty slick. If any one of them goes off they all go off.

Not cheap, $150 for three, and not foolproof but a little more peace of mind.

wonder if they'd do for new construction in place of hard wired interconnects.
are they battery powered solely? if so please let us know how long the batteries last.
murphy's law says the fact you have them means you'll never have the need for them, only the hassle of maintaining them.
good luck.

I believe the code in MA at least says that NEW construction has to be AC powered w/ battery backup, and hard wired interconnect. They let you have more slack on existing construction since retrofitting isn't always practical. When I put in our Encore, I had to replace our smokes w/ combo units - I timed it perfectly, as BRK / First Alert had just come out with some new models a couple of weeks earlier that actually met MA codes (there was about a year where there was NO available product that met MA codes...) However I only had to put in three to replace the existing hardwired (and interconnected) detectors, if it had been new construction I would have needed about 6. The new units are pretty good, they talk as well as making noise, and tell you which unit is actually detecting a problem, as well as whether it is smoke or CO that is setting it off.

Only real issue is that the smoke side is Photo-electric, rather than ionization, and it's sensitive to steam. One unit is right outside the bathroom, and if the GF leaves the door open, and / or doesn't turn on the fan when she showers the steam sets it off...

Gooserider