Smoke Detectors [RE-wrenches]

[Frank Fowler, Crystal Pines Alt. Energy]

My understanding, at least in my county is, that if we replace AC with
lithium battery powered and the house catches on fire and the insurance
company finds out,,,, well you get the picture. No payout on the premium.
Plus our county will not authorize the use of DC powered detectors even
though they are listed and approved by just about everyone! My experience
with DR is that they will FRY the detectors. To make a long story short, we
live with the ghost load.
SUNcerely,
Frank Fowler
Crystal Pines Alternative Energy
4408 Pine Cluster Ln. Yankee Hill, CA. 95965
530-532-1972
www.solarenergy-alt.com
cpae1 at direcway.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel Davidson" <joeldavidson at earthlink.net>
To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 5:59 PM
Subject: Smoke Detectors [RE-wrenches]


> A customer writes:
> Do you have any information about phantom loads with smoke detectors? My
> understanding was that because the load is constant it is considerable.
> Building code here requires that I have 6 detectors and they must be
> wired together so they all go off at once. They are, of course, electric
> with battery backup and the builder and I thought we could unplug them
> and run them off their internal batteries but if they are on battery
> power they chirp
> continuously. is there any way around this that you know of?
>
> I reviewed previous postings about smoke detectors. Unless I missed
> something, here's what I found:
> 1. Smoke detectors are a significant phantom load that keep the inverter
> on.
> 2. Some wrenches report smoke detector problems with DR and SW
> inverters.
> 3. Some wrenches modified smoke detectors to run on DC.
> 4. Some wrenches use BRK Electronics detectors, but some report problems
> with same.
> 5. Some wrenches report customers switching out AC detectors with
> battery detectors after inspection.
> 6. Trace said that the Firex brand has been known to have problems and
> the Kidde tech said First Alert probably wouldn't work either.
>
> I won't tell the customer to disable or modify smoke detectors. Is
> switching to DC detectors the only work-around?
>
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