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Skinny_Man's avatar
Skinny_Man
Explorer II
Jul 28, 2013

CO alarm

A couple weeks ago my wife, step son and I camped for a week at a COE campground near home. I worked during the week while they enjoyed the lake. One day while at work I got a call that the smoke detector was going off. After being told numerous times nothing was burning I told her to take the battery out. Beeping continued, I told her I could not do anything until I got back to the campground. Beeping finally quit. The alrm went off a couple more times that week which was extremely annoying. What we figured out was that every time we sprayed sunscreen on the stepson the CO alarm would go off. Has anyone else ever had this issue?
  • Those sprays will also coat the sensor and destroy its ability to detect. I suggest you spray outside.
  • Yes, the sunscreen caused ours go go off also. Spray on the counter just across from it did the same thing.
    I must not have used as much spray as it did not go off for long each time.
  • Some of the sensors work on the house battery, and they will start screaming when the battery gets low. They can do that for days.

    They should also be blown out with a little compressed air every now and then. The dust clogs em up. At least that's what the fire department tells us around here. They recommend a blowing off twice a year when you change the batteries.
  • The light that lit up was CO not Propane. Thanks for the replies, glad to know others have seen this happen before.
  • I would GUESS that what you were hearing was the LP detector. It measures hydrocarbons (not specifically LP gas) and the propellant in the sun screen was probably setting it off. Don't let "fido" lay too close to the LP detector either if he's prone to flatulence or he'll set it off also :)
  • Many sprays use CO2 as the propellant so yes it will set it off
  • We have a 30 ft Wilderness trailer. Any aerosol spray sets off the CO detector! Quite annoying, but a good safety feature. Now, if DH would learn not to burn toast...!!!