Hard Wired Smoke Alarms

[gazboro]

Hi Guys .. Hope you can help, I've checked the search option for this and don't seem to be able to find the answer I want so here goes. We have moved into a house with 2 hard wired smoke alarms, both have battery back up. If you replace the battery they beep as if the battery needs replacing if you pull the battery tray out they go silent. My point is this , is it easy simple enough to take these down and replace with normal battery models. Doing this would enable us to use the 'spare' fuse to have lights fitted near the front and back doors or am I barking up the wrong tree

Thanks in advance

 

[bernardgreen]

Keep them as mains interconnected for safety. Smoke downstairs at night needs to create an alarm loud enough to wake people in bedroom(s) when the bedroom door is shut and they are fast asleep.

Tell your electrician to add the new lights to the same circuit breaker as the alarms. That way if the lights do not work you know there is a problem with the supply to the fire / smoke alarm circuit. It is not unknown for a breaker supplying only a fire / smoke alarm to trip off or be accidently turned off leaving the effectiveness of the fire / smoke alarms compromised

 

[BigRobCanUFixIt]

I would keep them as mains interlinked detectors too. Im guessing you house was built to fairly recent building regs.

Have you definately put the right battery in them I have seen some models with PP3 (square) batterys which are actually lithium batterys and are a bit more than 9V if you put alkaline ones in they may be below the treshold to chirp for low battery.

Rob