Here’s how it is in the desert. As we ready for sleep, windows are opened wide to allow the cool night air into our house. When we awake in the morning, we’ll be closing the windows before the heat of day flows in. It’s our usual routine as the summer season approaches; then air-conditioning will be on and we will not hear the birds at night or in the morning so easily.
BirdNET is a great app to help me identify birds via their calls or songs. I am a visual learner finding difficulty with audio learning so the app has helped me identify the night owl or the morning finch that may be calling. I may not see bird, but I hear its call and this app is another tool for me to use to identify a bird. But who’s chirping this morning?
Suddenly I realize the 3 piercing chirps that startled me awake this morning are sounds from a smoke alarm! There is nothing enjoyable about those chirps and I guess that’s the point! How can the chirps be from the same detector that chirped a month ago? How can it be after replacing batteries in all six detectors, a month ago, that we have any alarm chirping, let alone the same one again!
I don’t know if you have spent time really looking at smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in your home, but I recently discovered new things. I don’t mind learning new things but do mind the chirping so it was the motivating factor to get this issue resolved.
In the old days, I put up smoke detectors that were battery-powered. A separate carbon monoxide detector would be installed that was also battery-powered. Nowadays I discover alarms can be just a smoke detector or smoke and carbon monoxide detector in one unit. Plus detectors can be hard-wired with battery back-up. Gone are the days I can rid myself of the chirp and job responsibility within hours!
Locating an electrician or handyman was our first challenge. Friends, neighbors, anyone know someone who wants to stand on a ladder, stretch and screw around a ceiling item, and work with electricity? Thankfully no cathedral-height ceilings here … potential worker is glad to hear our ceilings are normal height; his service is scheduled! Buying the correct replacement for each type of detector was my next challenge. I almost goofed, but fortunately I checked with our builder’s customer service person to know each of our detectors are hard-wired; an important detail when selecting replacements. Do you know how many choices there are in the world of alarms? Thanks to ACE Hardware employees I have 2 smoke/carbon monoxide detectors and 4 smoke detectors all with hard-wired adapter. I hope they are easiest for our handyman to snap these replacements in and will not need to go shopping for anything else!
The birds are chirping and my smoke/carbon monoxide alarms are not; life is good! But don’t forget to replace the back-up batteries once a year as recommended. Thanks to our local firemen they come to our home, we provide the batteries and they climb the ladder to put a new battery in each alarm. Love their service! Stay safe everyone!
