In short
When a smoke alarm beeps or goes off with no smoke, check the four things Fire and Rescue NSW's maintenance advice covers: the battery, dust or insects inside it, where it is mounted, and its age. A hard-wired alarm runs on 240 volts with a back-up battery, so it can beep for a battery too, and repairing or replacing one is a job for a licensed electrician.
If you would rather have it checked, Ambient Electrical offers smoke alarm installation in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
Check the battery first
Fire and Rescue NSW recommends replacing a removable smoke alarm battery once a year, for example when the clocks change at the end of daylight saving. Alarms with a built-in 10-year lithium battery have no battery to change: the whole alarm is replaced every 10 years.
What each beep pattern means differs between models, so the maker's instructions for your alarm are the place to check.
Hard-wired smoke alarm beeping
A hard-wired smoke alarm is a 240-volt alarm connected to the home's electrical system, with a battery back-up power supply, as Fire and Rescue NSW describes it. That back-up battery can run down like any other, so a hard-wired alarm can beep for it too.
Follow the maker's instructions for the back-up battery. Repairing or replacing the alarm itself is electrical work for a licensed electrician, and in a rental the landlord must use one: hard-wired smoke alarm installation.
Smoke alarm going off with no smoke
Fire and Rescue NSW says smoke alarms can be affected by dust, insects, humidity and age. It also says a common mistake is installing smoke alarms too close to the kitchen or bathroom, where cooking fumes and steam reach them.
Cleaning the alarm, and moving one that sits too close to the kitchen or bathroom, deals with most of these. Moving a hard-wired alarm is a job for a licensed electrician.
How often should smoke alarms be cleaned?
Every six months, with a vacuum cleaner, Fire and Rescue NSW says: it removes dust or particles that could stop the alarm working properly. It also recommends testing every alarm once a month by pressing its test button.
When to replace a smoke alarm
At least every 10 years. Fire and Rescue NSW says the sensitivity of all smoke alarms reduces over time. The manufacture date, or a batch number, is usually on the base near the battery compartment: a batch number of 2406, for example, may mean the 24th week of 2006.
In a rental, the landlord must replace smoke alarms within 10 years of manufacture, or earlier if the maker says so. The guide to smoke alarm rules in NSW covers where alarms must go.
