False Alarm / Smoke - how to deal with it

Hello All!

This may sound like an ODD question, but nonetheless, here goes.

We purchased our house pre-built around 30 years ago. It came with two hardwired smoke detectors - one on the upstairs hall wall (between two bedrooms), and the other on the ceiling of the downstairs hall between the kitchen, family, dining, and living room. Note, this is a small Cape Cod, <1200 sqft, so the “downstairs hall” is less than 12ft long with 4 entrances on it.

Anyway, the layout of the house is such that even the smallest amounts of smoke (like pizza dripping cheese in the oven) or even steam (I’ve been making waffles a lot, recently) will set off the downstairs smoke detector - photoelectric First Alerts, with the Ring listener nearby.

Finally, the question - Lets say I’m making waffles, and the steam sets off the alarm. What sequence do I follow to successfully silence both systems and cancel any response in the least amount of time? Do I head to the back door keypad, enter my house code, and hit disarm, then go to the smoke detector with a long wooden spoon and hit Mute? Or the other way - hit Mute on the smoke detector, and then back to the keypad to disarm it.

When it happened yesterday - I hit mute on the smoke detector, then opened the app and hit Disarm (I think) in that. I couldn’t think what I should do on the keypad at all.

I want to know how to do this quickly & efficiently *before* I activate the Monitoring package I’ve had for several months now… And I need to let my wife and house sitters know the “best procedure” as well.

Thanks.

Hey @JamesC. Great question to ask! It’s always best to make sure you are disarming your system in time in order to avoid false alarms. In addition, who would want to be interrupted while making waffles? Don’t need them getting cold.

The best thing to do first is to always disarm your system as soon as possible in the event of a false alarm that you know is a false alarm. If your keypad is closer than your phone, go to the keypad and put in your 4 digit code and then hit disarm. If you have your phone on you, I recommend disarming from the Ring app’s dashboard. I personally have my phone normally closer, so I use my phone! From there, you can silence the smoke alarm itself in order to ensure it does not set off again, which it should not right back to back after disarming.

Please note that in the event of a false alarm when it comes to the smoke alarm, if you are unable to disarm your system within the 30 second window before our monitoring station calls, you will need to make sure the first contact answers the phone. If you’re the big waffle maker in the home that may set it off more than others, I recommend making sure you’re the first emergency contact! Unlike for breakin’s, our monitoring process for smoke alarms is to call the first contact, and if they don’t answer, we will send the fire department, and then alert the second and third contact. Therefore, if the first contact doesn’t answer the phone after you were unable to disarm the system, the fire department may show up to your door. This should not happen though, as you seem diligent in disarming your system in time every time. :slight_smile:

Hi! May this find you well. I’m puzzled by what I read from Chelsea_Ring, which seems to be different from what I read in Fire and Carbon Monoxide Alarms - False Alarm Tips . Ring Support article.

"If you have smoke and CO professional monitoring, please read this carefully.

  1. You can’t cancel a smoke alarm from your Keypad or the app. If you need to cancel, your first emergency contact must answer the call from the monitoring center and verbally request to cancel." If that’s true, wouldn’t I simply have to wait until professional monitoring called me (first emergency contact) to tell them it was a false alarm? I’m also not clear about the 30-second window of time. I’ve yet to read that anywhere else. Warm Thanks!
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Once a smoke alarms is triggered it can only be cancelled via answering the call to confirm no fire danger. A CO alarm signal will often dispatch fire no matter what. It looks like our last response here was quite some time ago, in which the article you shared is a great resource for updated information. Check out also our emergency response plans for an overview of each alarm event type.

Smoke Alarm: When your Smoke alarm sounds in your home, a signal requesting fire is sent. The monitoring center will attempt to contact your first emergency contact. If no one answers, the monitoring center will request fire dispatch. Then, the monitoring center will attempt to call the emergency contacts to notify them that the fire department has been dispatched.

I hope this helps! :slight_smile:

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Thanks Marley!

Each bit of information brings more clarity. I installed a First Alert ZCombo (gen 2) Smoke/CO alarm, and it’s connected to my Ring system now. I’m curious that the Ring app shows 2 different alarms, a smoke alarm and a CO alarm. The First Alert instructions say “the two alarm systems work independently.” That makes sense, but I want to make sure that I should be seeing two separate devices on my app. There are two different symbols in the history, one with CO in a circle and the other a flame. Should I see two devices on the app for one combo alarm? On a related note, I also have a Smoke/CO Listener installed. Does it send different messages to the monitoring center based on whether the smoke or the CO alarm is sounding? (It’s installed next to an interconnected, hardwired combo smoke & CO alarm, not the Z-Wave combo alarm). Warm thanks.

Hi @Daversatile. Correct. The Smoke/CO Alarm will show up as 2 separate units, in the Ring app even though it is one unit. This is done to differentiate Smoke and CO. Also, the Smoke and CO listener will send the appropriate signal to the monitoring station based on what temporal tone it hears. If it hears a Smoke Alarm, than that signal will be sent. Same for the CO alarm. I hope this information helps!

Hey neighbors! I just wanted to provide an update on the topic of False Smoke Alarms. This Help Center article here explains how you can cancel a Smoke Alarm from your Keypad. This is really useful if you have a mishap while cooking dinner!