Odd experience with the power here. The main bulb in the kitchen somehow went funny and threw the main light fuse switch.

What’s odd is that at the same time, it somehow activated the smoke alarm in the hallway. There was no smoke. The alarm only briefly sounded before the fuse switch shut.

Then there was the usual stupid routine of unscrewing the heavy fusebox cover so I could reset the switch. At this stage I didn’t know which light was responsible, so I turned them all off before I reset the fuse switch.

Then turning on the kitchen light, same thing happened. Smoke alarm immediately but briefly screamed before the fuse switch turned itself off.

I changed the kitchen bulb and now all is back to normal. But the question remains – why should the (battery powered) smoke alarm have sounded, when this was an electral fault in an adjacent room, with no smoke involved?

electral = electrical

Bubblecar said:

Odd experience with the power here. The main bulb in the kitchen somehow went funny and threw the main light fuse switch.

What’s odd is that at the same time, it somehow activated the smoke alarm in the hallway. There was no smoke. The alarm only briefly sounded before the fuse switch shut.

Then there was the usual stupid routine of unscrewing the heavy fusebox cover so I could reset the switch. At this stage I didn’t know which light was responsible, so I turned them all off before I reset the fuse switch.

Then turning on the kitchen light, same thing happened. Smoke alarm immediately but briefly screamed before the fuse switch turned itself off.

I changed the kitchen bulb and now all is back to normal. But the question remains – why should the (battery powered) smoke alarm have sounded, when this was an electral fault in an adjacent room, with no smoke involved?

Smoke that you couldn’t see. Electrical faults do start many fires. I’d be calling an electrician. The rats have likely been nimbbling on wores in your ceiling.

roughbarked said:

Bubblecar said:

Odd experience with the power here. The main bulb in the kitchen somehow went funny and threw the main light fuse switch.

What’s odd is that at the same time, it somehow activated the smoke alarm in the hallway. There was no smoke. The alarm only briefly sounded before the fuse switch shut.

Then there was the usual stupid routine of unscrewing the heavy fusebox cover so I could reset the switch. At this stage I didn’t know which light was responsible, so I turned them all off before I reset the fuse switch.

Then turning on the kitchen light, same thing happened. Smoke alarm immediately but briefly screamed before the fuse switch turned itself off.

I changed the kitchen bulb and now all is back to normal. But the question remains – why should the (battery powered) smoke alarm have sounded, when this was an electral fault in an adjacent room, with no smoke involved?

Smoke that you couldn’t see. Electrical faults do start many fires. I’d be calling an electrician. The rats have likely been nimbbling on wores in your ceiling.

I didn’t mean to imply carnal activities in your ceiling, it was a typo.

roughbarked said:

Smoke that you couldn’t see. Electrical faults do start many fires. I’d be calling an electrician. The rats have likely been nimbbling on wores in your ceiling.

There was no time for any smoke to be emitted by anything when I turned on the light switch. The alarm immediately sounded.

The only thing I can think of is that the fuse system might be equipped with its own alarm that sounds like a smoke alarm.

Problems with this are:

a) I’ve never heard an alarm when a fuse switch has thrown before.

b) I could swear that the sound was coming from the hallway smoke alarm.

Bubblecar said:

roughbarked said:

Smoke that you couldn’t see. Electrical faults do start many fires. I’d be calling an electrician. The rats have likely been nimbbling on wores in your ceiling.

There was no time for any smoke to be emitted by anything when I turned on the light switch. The alarm immediately sounded.

The only thing I can think of is that the fuse system might be equipped with its own alarm that sounds like a smoke alarm.

Problems with this are:

a) I’ve never heard an alarm when a fuse switch has thrown before.

b) I could swear that the sound was coming from the hallway smoke alarm.

It was. it will be fine tuned to sense electrical smoke that you likely cannot see but the smoke alarm will.

Bubblecar said:

Odd experience with the power here. The main bulb in the kitchen somehow went funny and threw the main light fuse switch.

What’s odd is that at the same time, it somehow activated the smoke alarm in the hallway. There was no smoke. The alarm only briefly sounded before the fuse switch shut.

Then there was the usual stupid routine of unscrewing the heavy fusebox cover so I could reset the switch. At this stage I didn’t know which light was responsible, so I turned them all off before I reset the fuse switch.

Then turning on the kitchen light, same thing happened. Smoke alarm immediately but briefly screamed before the fuse switch turned itself off.

I changed the kitchen bulb and now all is back to normal. But the question remains – why should the (battery powered) smoke alarm have sounded, when this was an electral fault in an adjacent room, with no smoke involved?

Presumably your smoke alarm is wired to the mains with batteries as back up. If the alarm sounds when the mains power goes off, it may be trying to tell you the batteries in the smoke alarm are needing changed. Perhaps they are flat enough that it only goes off momentarily because the batteries do not have enough power for continuous “come-change-my-batteries-noise” operation.

esselte said:

Bubblecar said:

Odd experience with the power here. The main bulb in the kitchen somehow went funny and threw the main light fuse switch.

What’s odd is that at the same time, it somehow activated the smoke alarm in the hallway. There was no smoke. The alarm only briefly sounded before the fuse switch shut.

Then there was the usual stupid routine of unscrewing the heavy fusebox cover so I could reset the switch. At this stage I didn’t know which light was responsible, so I turned them all off before I reset the fuse switch.

Then turning on the kitchen light, same thing happened. Smoke alarm immediately but briefly screamed before the fuse switch turned itself off.

I changed the kitchen bulb and now all is back to normal. But the question remains – why should the (battery powered) smoke alarm have sounded, when this was an electral fault in an adjacent room, with no smoke involved?

Presumably your smoke alarm is wired to the mains with batteries as back up. If the alarm sounds when the mains power goes off, it may be trying to tell you the batteries in the smoke alarm are needing changed. Perhaps they are flat enough that it only goes off momentarily because the batteries do not have enough power for continuous “come-change-my-batteries-noise” operation.

Could be the case but usually the flat battery alarm sounds like there’s a rogue cricket undr one of the cupboards.
It doesn’t do the shrill warning as it does when smoke is detected.

make yourself a nice cup of tea, car, imagine something serene

smoke alarms can have rechargeable batteries but require a power circuit to keep them charged, any circuit will do it and a lighting circuit is probably easy, though properly meant to have a dedicated power circuit for charging with its own dedicated main switch and circuit breaker at the power board, also as recall maybe spacing regulations to do with separation of smoke alarm power charge circuits from other power circuits, not sure now

which maybe depends perhaps again what type of smoke alarm, what manufacturers recommend, dunno

this is very vague from memory from a long time back when I ate the wiring code book for breakfast one morning, run out of bread that day

and there are other things, you can loop fire alarms so that if one goes off others do, depending which are looped to do that

now, how’s that cup of tea going

a further dimension to smoke alarms from history is the use of nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries, they dry out, lose their capacity, AH capacity, so only maintain appropriate terminal voltage when the mains power is on, and of course as the mains power drops away they momentarily scream I can’t do this anymore as they go under the minimum operating voltage threshold, an undervoltage warning

like I said, a vague recollection

esselte said:

Bubblecar said:

Odd experience with the power here. The main bulb in the kitchen somehow went funny and threw the main light fuse switch.

What’s odd is that at the same time, it somehow activated the smoke alarm in the hallway. There was no smoke. The alarm only briefly sounded before the fuse switch shut.

Then there was the usual stupid routine of unscrewing the heavy fusebox cover so I could reset the switch. At this stage I didn’t know which light was responsible, so I turned them all off before I reset the fuse switch.

Then turning on the kitchen light, same thing happened. Smoke alarm immediately but briefly screamed before the fuse switch turned itself off.

I changed the kitchen bulb and now all is back to normal. But the question remains – why should the (battery powered) smoke alarm have sounded, when this was an electral fault in an adjacent room, with no smoke involved?

Presumably your smoke alarm is wired to the mains with batteries as back up. If the alarm sounds when the mains power goes off, it may be trying to tell you the batteries in the smoke alarm are needing changed. Perhaps they are flat enough that it only goes off momentarily because the batteries do not have enough power for continuous “come-change-my-batteries-noise” operation.

The smoke alarms are checked annually by an inspector. And the alarm sounded immediately before the fuse switch shut. It was specifically the Protected Light N2 switch.

I don’t know if the alarms have a mains connection, I suppose it’s possible.

transition said:

make yourself a nice cup of tea, car, imagine something serene

smoke alarms can have rechargeable batteries but require a power circuit to keep them charged, any circuit will do it and a lighting circuit is probably easy, though properly meant to have a dedicated power circuit for charging with its own dedicated main switch and circuit breaker at the power board, also as recall maybe spacing regulations to do with separation of smoke alarm power charge circuits from other power circuits, not sure now

which maybe depends perhaps again what type of smoke alarm, what manufacturers recommend, dunno

this is very vague from memory from a long time back when I ate the wiring code book for breakfast one morning, run out of bread that day

and there are other things, you can loop fire alarms so that if one goes off others do, depending which are looped to do that

now, how’s that cup of tea going

a further dimension to smoke alarms from history is the use of nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries, they dry out, lose their capacity, AH capacity, so only maintain appropriate terminal voltage when the mains power is on, and of course as the mains power drops away they momentarily scream I can’t do this anymore as they go under the minimum operating voltage threshold, an undervoltage warning

like I said, a vague recollection

OK. My experience is only with the fire alarms that only run on a 9v battery. Not connected to the wiring loop.

transition said:

make yourself a nice cup of tea, car, imagine something serene

smoke alarms can have rechargeable batteries but require a power circuit to keep them charged, any circuit will do it and a lighting circuit is probably easy, though properly meant to have a dedicated power circuit for charging with its own dedicated main switch and circuit breaker at the power board, also as recall maybe spacing regulations to do with separation of smoke alarm power charge circuits from other power circuits, not sure now

which maybe depends perhaps again what type of smoke alarm, what manufacturers recommend, dunno

this is very vague from memory from a long time back when I ate the wiring code book for breakfast one morning, run out of bread that day

and there are other things, you can loop fire alarms so that if one goes off others do, depending which are looped to do that

now, how’s that cup of tea going

a further dimension to smoke alarms from history is the use of nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries, they dry out, lose their capacity, AH capacity, so only maintain appropriate terminal voltage when the mains power is on, and of course as the mains power drops away they momentarily scream I can’t do this anymore as they go under the minimum operating voltage threshold, an undervoltage warning

like I said, a vague recollection

OK then, I’ll assume the alarm in the hallway has a connection to the lighting power (the smoke alarm out the back in the linen room made no sound).

I’ll ask the smoke alarm inspector about it next time he visits.

Bubblecar said:

esselte said:

Bubblecar said:

Odd experience with the power here. The main bulb in the kitchen somehow went funny and threw the main light fuse switch.

What’s odd is that at the same time, it somehow activated the smoke alarm in the hallway. There was no smoke. The alarm only briefly sounded before the fuse switch shut.

Then there was the usual stupid routine of unscrewing the heavy fusebox cover so I could reset the switch. At this stage I didn’t know which light was responsible, so I turned them all off before I reset the fuse switch.

Then turning on the kitchen light, same thing happened. Smoke alarm immediately but briefly screamed before the fuse switch turned itself off.

I changed the kitchen bulb and now all is back to normal. But the question remains – why should the (battery powered) smoke alarm have sounded, when this was an electral fault in an adjacent room, with no smoke involved?

Presumably your smoke alarm is wired to the mains with batteries as back up. If the alarm sounds when the mains power goes off, it may be trying to tell you the batteries in the smoke alarm are needing changed. Perhaps they are flat enough that it only goes off momentarily because the batteries do not have enough power for continuous “come-change-my-batteries-noise” operation.

The smoke alarms are checked annually by an inspector. And the alarm sounded immediately before the fuse switch shut. It was specifically the Protected Light N2 switch.

I don’t know if the alarms have a mains connection, I suppose it’s possible.

Older ones would have been.

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

make yourself a nice cup of tea, car, imagine something serene

smoke alarms can have rechargeable batteries but require a power circuit to keep them charged, any circuit will do it and a lighting circuit is probably easy, though properly meant to have a dedicated power circuit for charging with its own dedicated main switch and circuit breaker at the power board, also as recall maybe spacing regulations to do with separation of smoke alarm power charge circuits from other power circuits, not sure now

which maybe depends perhaps again what type of smoke alarm, what manufacturers recommend, dunno

this is very vague from memory from a long time back when I ate the wiring code book for breakfast one morning, run out of bread that day

and there are other things, you can loop fire alarms so that if one goes off others do, depending which are looped to do that

now, how’s that cup of tea going

a further dimension to smoke alarms from history is the use of nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries, they dry out, lose their capacity, AH capacity, so only maintain appropriate terminal voltage when the mains power is on, and of course as the mains power drops away they momentarily scream I can’t do this anymore as they go under the minimum operating voltage threshold, an undervoltage warning

like I said, a vague recollection

OK then, I’ll assume the alarm in the hallway has a connection to the lighting power (the smoke alarm out the back in the linen room made no sound).

I’ll ask the smoke alarm inspector about it next time he visits.

It is good to be in the know. So yes, I’d ask as well.

Assuming you are in a rental

The rules are that smoke detectors have to have 2 power sources – battery and AC power.

The smoke detector is probably on the same circuit as the lights. The smoke detector is probably set up to make a squeak when it loses AC power.

Outside of rentals if you own you can more or less do what you want. The place I moved into must have been primed for rental because the smoke detectors were hard-wired to the light circuit and had batteries.

wookiemeister said:

Outside of rentals if you own you can more or less do what you want. The place I moved into must have been primed for rental because the smoke detectors were hard-wired to the light circuit and had batteries.

In about three or four years, all smoke alarms will have to have the two sources of power and also wirelessly connect to each other so they all go off together.
That’s with all dwellings, rental or not.

Spiny Norman said:

wookiemeister said:

Outside of rentals if you own you can more or less do what you want. The place I moved into must have been primed for rental because the smoke detectors were hard-wired to the light circuit and had batteries.

In about three or four years, all smoke alarms will have to have the two sources of power and also wirelessly connect to each other so they all go off together.
That’s with all dwellings, rental or not.

I had no idea. I don’t have smoke detectors anymore, the dust blowing around makes them alarm within days of installation at all hours of the day and night

The photo electric typed seem way to trigger happy, I never had any problems with the isotope types.

Some things, not judging, informing.

1. Fuses are old technology.
2. The residence almost certainly has Residual Current Devices (RCD’s) which operate at a current below lethal levels.
3. All rental properties and new homes must have mains powered smoke detectors.
4. They are usually connected to a lighting circuit.
5. They open, not close.

Bubblecar said:

Odd experience with the power here. The main bulb in the kitchen somehow went funny and threw the main light fuse switch.

What’s odd is that at the same time, it somehow activated the smoke alarm in the hallway. There was no smoke. The alarm only briefly sounded before the fuse switch shut.

Then there was the usual stupid routine of unscrewing the heavy fusebox cover so I could reset the switch. At this stage I didn’t know which light was responsible, so I turned them all off before I reset the fuse switch.

Then turning on the kitchen light, same thing happened. Smoke alarm immediately but briefly screamed before the fuse switch turned itself off.

I changed the kitchen bulb and now all is back to normal. But the question remains – why should the (battery powered) smoke alarm have sounded, when this was an electral fault in an adjacent room, with no smoke involved?