My house has a wired smoke alarm system, three smoke detectors and one CO detector. These are all old firex detectors, I am replacing them with three kiddie smoke alarms where one is combo CO + smoke detector.
The problem is if I remove the old CO detector and leave it disconnected the alarms chirp every 5-10 minutes. I put it back in and the chirping reduced to rarely a couple times a day.
How can I fix this setup to remove that old detector from the system?
Best Answer
I solved this by re-inspecting the detector that was making the noise. I discover that the original wiring had reversed white and black power connections.
Perhaps the older alarms were not polarized.
I have no confirmed idea why the external CO detector impacted this system, my theory is it helped balance the load to offset the crossed wires.
After fixing the wiring, I was able to remove the external CO detector without any further issue.