Setting Off Alarms
Aug. 6th, 2022 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeYesterday's weather was light rain throughout the day, which is very unusual for Fernley. Rain around here is normally either a few minutes of large drops, or maybe 20% of our annual rainfall in less than an hour, with flash flood watches in effect. Yesterday's storm was very nice in that it kept temperatures very comfortable. On the other hand, today we have humidity that is considerably higher than usual. Mind you, that's only 25%, but it's still unusual.
A side effect of the high-by-our-standards humidity is that when I ran the swamp cooler, I got the humidity so high in the living room, the smoke alarm went off. Now I think it was mostly dust -- lots of it that coupled with the humidity to set off the alarm. However, I don't know how to reset or turn off that alarm, and it's hard-wired into the house electrical circuit, not battery operated. I frantically blew compressed air into the alarm and brushed dust off from around the area while it blared away. I was just about to go through the circuit breaker so I could cut the wires to the thing when it shut itself off. I kept cleaning in the area for a while and turned the swamp cooler to vent (no water) for a while. The alarm chirped and burbled a few times for the next 30 minutes or so before no longer giving me a heart attack ever few minutes.
I may go ahead and remove that hard-wired alarm and replace it with a battery-powered one, because while I do want a smoke alarm that will wake me up, I also want a way to cancel it if necessary other than taking a pair of shears to a live electrical line.
Meanwhile, this afternoon I am putting together the program book mailing for the members of Westercon 74. It will still be a few days before we get the domestic US members' mailings posted, but we're making progress on it.
A side effect of the high-by-our-standards humidity is that when I ran the swamp cooler, I got the humidity so high in the living room, the smoke alarm went off. Now I think it was mostly dust -- lots of it that coupled with the humidity to set off the alarm. However, I don't know how to reset or turn off that alarm, and it's hard-wired into the house electrical circuit, not battery operated. I frantically blew compressed air into the alarm and brushed dust off from around the area while it blared away. I was just about to go through the circuit breaker so I could cut the wires to the thing when it shut itself off. I kept cleaning in the area for a while and turned the swamp cooler to vent (no water) for a while. The alarm chirped and burbled a few times for the next 30 minutes or so before no longer giving me a heart attack ever few minutes.
I may go ahead and remove that hard-wired alarm and replace it with a battery-powered one, because while I do want a smoke alarm that will wake me up, I also want a way to cancel it if necessary other than taking a pair of shears to a live electrical line.
Meanwhile, this afternoon I am putting together the program book mailing for the members of Westercon 74. It will still be a few days before we get the domestic US members' mailings posted, but we're making progress on it.
Alarms and such
Date: 2022-08-07 04:25 pm (UTC)Finding the "replace the batteries twice a year when the time changes" type of alarms may be tough. Because people were not changing the batteries, code was turned to the hard wired ones OR a 10yr battery life ones, for SIGNIFICANTLY higher price, of course. I tried to find some for a friend and the least expensive one was $70, even at Wally-World! Now $7/year isn't bad, but the outlay, when a code inspector is coming and wants you to have 6 in the house, gets a bit spendy!