I’ve had two Tyco Power-G fire detectors set off fire alarms this year. The first unit did it on two separate occasions before I warrantied it. The second unit was bought around the same time and it also randomly triggered the fire alarm. Both were installed in bedrooms and both units were less than a year old. Yesterday, I had one of the Qolsys IQ Smoke detectors in another bedroom set off the fire alarm. That smoke detector was two years old.
This is aggravating as I went nearly 5yrs on my original Qolsys equipment without a hiccup. I have been lucky that someone has been home to stop the fire department from coming out, but loosing faith in my Qolsys system. I am hesitant in installing the replacement. Any ideas as to why this is happening? A bad 2+ head unit maybe?
Have you tried cleaning the detectors? I’ve had a First Alert smoke detector go off due to being dirty before.
False alarms from 3 separate detectors is very unlikely to be some sort of hardware issue. I would first strongly consider environmental causes.
Dust, nearby vents, ceiling fans that may spread dust, smoking in the home, etc. As the other poster suggested, build up of dust etc., can impact alarms. Do any of those apply here?
We do have ceiling fans in all 3 rooms. The ceiling fan in the master is several feet above the level of the Power-G fire sensor (very deep tray ceiling). The first two Power-G units were only a couple of months old (one was installed for 2mo, and the other 4mo I think). Our house is a non-smoking house.
I am looking at the latest one to go off (IQ Smoke) - 5 of the 6 sections look brand new, no dust. One section has a small amount of dust.
I would check the fans for dust on the blades and try cleaning the detector.
Turbulent air flow with dust can cause false alarms.
I am at wits end with these PowerG smoke detectors. I finally installed the 3 replacements on Thursday of last week along with an IQ Panel 4 (my IQ Panel 2+ died). I made it 3 nights before my first false alarm (late last night) with one of the new units. I get that room fans can cause issues… but I went nearly 5yrs on the first IQ Smoke models without a single false alarm. Fan blades are clean. Is there a functional design difference between the PowerG and the IQ Smoke (and should I go back to those)?
The frequency of false alarms you are referencing is almost certainly environmental. Does anyone in the home use vaping products? Do the false alarms correspond to cooking or shortly after? Are the fans running each time a false alarm occurs? Are there also vents nearby the fans/detectors?
Is the new smoke detector that caused a false alarm the same location that last had one?
They are different models of detector, so it is entirely possible for the IQ Smoke and the PowerG smoke to have different reaction to a stimulus. You mentioned one of your IQ Smokes had recently caused a false alarm as well though, and this sort of difference in activation frequency is not really expected or reported.
These have been in all 3 bedrooms, nowhere else. No vaping, no smoking and long past any meal preps in the kitchen (all have been late evening). We do have two dogs (always have). Vents are on the floor, but as mentioned there are ceiling fans which run just about constantly. The unit in the MasterBR is several feet below the fan and a fairly good distance away (tray ceiling). Interestingly, the false alarms in the kids rooms have all been with a grown up in the room (my wife was reading to my son last night when his went off). I literally took that smoke detector out of the box on Thursday and installed it. Frustrating. The false alarm on the IQ Smoke was on a 2yo unit… and the PowerG units were much newer. I may go back to the IQ Smokes and just do annual cleaning on them and see if that cuts down occurrence. I will try an move the two in the kids room closer to the corner as well which will add some distance from the fans.
Hello everybody, lend your ear and you may get some relief from the wireless DSC/powerG/Qolsys smoke and CO detectors.
After about 100 service calls in a year for incessant false alarms, here’s the going consensus.
The devices are made and calibrated in a clean room, that’s great except for your house isn’t a static free environment. The devices have a low tolerance to absolutely anything in the air, water vapor, dust from a fan, exhaled vape or smoke, and of course fire. So this presents a problem.
The problem I catch the most flak for is that when one goes off, all go off, followed by the siren and the keypad (which you must know is a crime against nature for the decibel levels it emits).
The bad news, you can replace the devices a thousand times and still have the same problem. But. But but but. If you enable fire two trip verification in dealer settings and disable SIA limits in alarms/arming, the end result is that if a device false alarms once, that one device chirps 3 times (it doesn’t scream at you) and nothing else happens. If a second trip is detected within 30 seconds, the alarm goes berserk like usual. But if you’re like me and have noticed that you never have back to back false alarms, this will “fix” your problem. Do not mess with this if your system is monitored.