The Sterling Beeps

I am an electrical contractor, and I have been in many many different buildings all over the city. There are hundreds of thousands of the battery powered smoke detectors out there and at any given time probably I believe close to half are on "Low Battery" chirp.

I can not remember the last time I entered a building and did not hear at least one chirp. It doesn't matter if it's a one family house or 50 unit apartment building. They chirp and chirp and chirp. Once there were so many chirping in one building it was like every 3 seconds.

That chirp can last up to three months. If the detector is the type that gets power from the building and uses the battery for backup only, the chirp can be indefinite. However, there's not too many of those yet.

And since the CARBON MONOXIDE LAW was passed a few years ago the number of battery units out there doubled. :shock:

I always ask prospective customers when I visit: "When are you going to put new batteries in your smoke detector?"

Some common answers are:
That's the landlords responsibility.
Oh, is that what that is?
What noise?

I amazes me still that to save $1.00 people will put their lives in danger.

As far as this post is concerned, I'm convinced it's the low batteries.

I have heard strange beeping, too. But I used to live in Berkeley, CA, and they sound exactly like the crosswalk signals (which beep for blind pedestrians). I heard a few years ago New York City might use them.

Just an idea.

Hexatron wrote: the Sterling Beeps should be at least a softball team.

I vote Roller Derby.

wirenut wrote:
Some common answers are:
That's the landlords responsibility.
Oh, is that what that is?
What noise?

I guess I'll count this as my daily reminder of how lazy and stupid people can be.

EDIT: oh yeah, when it comes to revenge, The Mind Molester second only to an upper decker in the bang/buck department and a lot easier to pull off...

mass hysteria in prospect heights .

There has been the beeping on either smoke or co2 detectors in the common hallway of my building for at LEAST six months now. my dogs really enjoy barking to it! =( i should probably contact the super or landlord... ugh