Well, I figured yelling “CAULIFLOWER!!!” was not as effective. We were cooking some cauliflower in the oven tonight, and hit the smoke point of the olive oil we used, setting off the smoke detectors (hardwired interconnect, independent of alarm system), which therefore tripped the Firefighter module connected to the QOLSYS panel.
The alarm tripped, signal went out, my cell phone rang, I gave password, told alarm.com it was a cooking issue, and all was well. Alert had not been sent to fire dispatch at that point. I got the codes in, alarm silenced (at just about the same time the phone call ended), turned on a fan to clear the air.
Then got a second call from alarm.com. Different operator…told him same thing, no fire, no emergency…but he said fire department had already been dispatched. He did not see record or indication of previous phone call. (First call per phone record was 7:40pm, second at 7:47pm.)
The good thing…now I know that my Firefighter interface actually works, and that the correct fire department is dispatched to the correct location.
But the question is…why the second dispatch? Did another signal go out from my system, as I was clearing the fire alert, as, or just after, I talked with the alarm center? Is there a way this can be prevented in the future (maybe staying on the line longer with the alarm center)?
But the question is…why the second dispatch? Did another signal go out from my system, as I was clearing the fire alert, as, or just after, I talked with the alarm center?
Sorry to hear you had this trouble, I can confirm that yes another fire alarm signal was sent by the system after you disarmed to clear the first fire alarm. That is the reason another call took place.
Locally you would have disarmed the system to stop the siren, but then the siren kicked in again.
This second fire alarm signal was forwarded to the monitoring station separately, resulting in another call. This is normal based on how your system signals came through.
Is there a way that I could have prevented the second signal from then going to fire dispatch before a call to me at that point? Should I have stayed on the phone on the first call until the smoke cleared and the detectors stopped sounding? Would the same operator have seen the second signal and been able to cancel it, as I worked to clear the smoke detectors?
Basically, I got the numbers in about the time the phone rang. Between the interconnected smokes going off, and the qolsys panel sounding, I could barely hear to talk on the phone…but was at the same time putting in codes, getting a couple of windows open, grabbing a box fan to get air moving down the hallway.
(BTW, there was luckily very little visible smoke, just a puff and rush of heat/steam when we opened the oven door.)
One option if you have an active smoke false alarm hazard like burning food, you can ask the operator to place your account on test mode to ignore further alarms from that sensor for a period of time. That way if additional false alarms occur during that time, they would be disregarded by the monitoring station.
Yes, if you were on the call with that operator, they would see the additional signals come in, you could ask that they disregard, but given that there may be lingering smoke, test mode is probably a good solution.