Warning: Under no circumstance should the wires to the heat detector be cut. Inside the heat detector is a spring and some contacts. When heat melts some low temperature solder, the spring pulls the contacts together.
The heat detector is incapable of chirping.
The smoke alarm makes noise only inside your condo unit; the heat detector is connected to the building-wide fire alarm system. The building-wide fire alarm system monitors the wires to make sure they don't break or come loose from anything.
If the wires are cut, the building-wide fire alarm system will automatically show that something's wrong with the fire alarm system - and whatever's wrong needs to be fixed.
Photo by VJ
Sequence of Events:
- The management or association will see a trouble light and hear a beeping from the building's fire alarm system
- They'll call a fire alarm service company
- Someone from the service company will spend several hours looking for the damaged wire, and finally find your condo
- You'll receive a bill for the entire troubleshooting
Another problem is that while you're cutting or removing wires, if the cut wires accidently touch each other, the entire building will have a fire alarm, and the fire department will come.
I personally fear to touch heat detectors without taking proper precautions, so should you.
Nuff of the warning.
Finding the Unknown Beeping
I assume that you have good hearing, but good hearing won't help when trying to locate the source of beeping.
As a professional, I have on several occasions troubleshoot beeping sounds coming from something, somewhere in a condo or apartment. I have learned that if I am standing in the center of a room and listening, room acoustics make it impossible to locate the source of a beeping sound, anywhere in a room.
To find out which device is really beeping, this is what I do.
Walk up to the device I think may be making the beep. Place my ear within a foot (or half of a meter) from the device, and listen. If, when I am that close to the device making the sound, the beep sounds much louder, and I have found the device.
If, on the other hand, the beep sounds about as loud as it sounded before, I have not found the device. In other words, I move to listen to another device.
Common devices that beep when a battery is bad, or when the device itself is bad, or when the device is out-of-date are:
- Smoke alarms
- Wired in or plugged in carbon monoxide (CO) detectors
- Furnace alarms
- Water heater alarms
- Uninterruptable power supplies (UPS)
- Etc.
Keep in mind, some devices (like carbon monoxide detectors) go bad after a few years and have to be replaced.
Before replacing batteries or cutting wires, find the device that's beeping by close-by listening. Then deal with the device.
Douglas Krantz