Handy Hints, Gadgets, Products & Gizmos

popeye59 wrote:

PUCampin wrote:
Our smoke alarm will go off pretty much any time we turn on the stove. Boiling water sets it off. Since it is easy to access, I drop the cover which is on a hinge, and move the battery out of the contacts. The cover reminds me to put it back when done.

As a side note, the proper detector to put in a home kitchen is a "Heat Rise" Detector, not a smoke detector. A heat rise detector senses a fire by measureing how fast the temperature is rising at it's location, not by measuring the particulate concentration like a smoke detector. Cooking will not cause a rapid temperature rise like a fire does, so you will not get nuisance alarms. A smoke detector will ALWAYS give nuisance detections in a kitchen.

I feel I must disagree here. First off both my wife and I can both cook many complete meals without having the smoke detector go off once. One time (and that is more than enough, trust me) our smoke detector went off at 3:00am. We were all asleep and woke to find a smoldering trash can. If we would have had to wait until the heat increased fast enough for the rate of rise detector to sense it, my whole family would be dead.

True, a smoke detector will give nuisance alarms where a rate of rise detector won't, but when my butt is on the line, I want the one that goes off first.