www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

Less than 12 months ago I had two Garvan smoke alarms and a Garvan heat detector in a property that I rent out, these alarms are wired interlinked so if one goes off they all go off.

A few months back the tenant called me on a Saturday night at 21:30 to say the alarms were going off for no reason. When I arrived I found that the RCD had tripped because someone had damaged a bayonet fitting when trying to remove a lamp, so I thought the fault was because of that. The day after she called again at a similar time of night to say that the alarms were sounding again. This causes major hassle for the tenant because all three alarms sound in the property and they were going off for no reason it also causes major hassle for me as I have to drive there and try and fix the problem.

After messing about changing batteries and spending £10 on new ones I noticed that one of the smoke alarms had a amber led illuminating on it, which the others did not have, so I removed it and the fault went away. I took it back to the retailer who was happy to swap if for a new one (still hassle for me as I had to drive to the next town and they did not have one in stock, so 2 trips on two separate days). I replaced the alarm and the problem went away until a hour or so ago when the tenant called again, as she was on the phone I heard the alarms sounding

She was obviously p!ssed off and so was I, so she asked me to remove them all as it's impossible to find the faulty alarm unless I stay there all night and mess about with them. So I removed all three alarms and brought them home. I noticed that each alarm flashes a red LED every minute as it should do to indicate that the battery is O, but one alarm flashes red intermittently for 12-20 flashes, whilst I was searching the internet trying to find out what this meant the damn thing alarmed again for no reason

Absolutely not happy with the Garvan smoke alarms, these things are supposed to have a 5 year warrant but I don't want another one replacing as when it inevitably goes wrong again it is me that is going to be inconvenienced again, not to mention the poor tenant. She is going to call the fire brigade asap and get free ones installed.

As I understand it there are several problems with what your tenant plans to do.

Not all, but a lot of fire brigades no longer supply free smoke alarms (Cut backs) others, you have to "qualify" for them. For example OAP living on own.

Other thing is, I believe they do not supply interlinked ones, and it sounds like she may have to have interlinked ones by law (Building reg)

I suggest you do change all of them, but have some thing like the Kidde ones that you can connect a "special switch" to that turns them off for 8 minutes (The idea being that the smoke has cleared by then and they switch back on) I know it was a dodgy one in this case, but at least it will stop them.
The idea of the switch is also that if you are going to "burn the toast" you press it before you burn anything.

ultimatehandyman wrote: it's impossible to find the faulty alarm unless I stay there all night and mess about with her.

I love the quote button......

someone-else wrote:As I understand it there are several problems with what your tenant plans to do.

Not all, but a lot of fire brigades no longer supply free smoke alarms (Cut backs) others, you have to "qualify" for them. For example OAP living on own.

Other thing is, I believe they do not supply interlinked ones, and it sounds like she may have to have interlinked ones by law (Building reg)

I suggest you do change all of them, but have some thing like the Kidde ones that you can connect a "special switch" to that turns them off for 8 minutes (The idea being that the smoke has cleared by then and they switch back on) I know it was a dodgy one in this case, but at least it will stop them.
The idea of the switch is also that if you are going to "burn the toast" you press it before you burn anything.

I think she will qualify.

Burning the toast should not be a problem as the kitchen was a heat detector.

I might just go and buy new ones but get a decent branded make next time. I only ended up with Garvan as I got them from my local electrical retailers who only seemed to sell that particular brand.

wine~o wrote:

ultimatehandyman wrote: it's impossible to find the faulty alarm unless I stay there all night and mess about with her.

I love the quote button......

I hope not. Angie will blow a fuse when she finds out

I took the faulty alarm back to the shop today and he replaced it Free of charge with another unit.

He said that he has been selling these alarms and heat detectors for ages and I am the only person that has ever been back with a faulty one (I have been back twice now)

I can't help but wonder, is he the sort of person that would say "we get lots of these returned"

To maintain his 'business reputation', its unlikely he will let the cat out of the bag by owning up that others have returned the product.
His likes trade in such products in the hope that muggins like myself will just not return the product but buy a replacement somewhere else

Bought a thermostatic bath/shower mixer from my local merchant Six months ago. When you turn it off after use, there's a constant drip drip that fills a bucket in a short while. I returned it after a week. The replacement was worse. It just ran constantly after its turned off. I returned that. I have not bothered to fit the replacement. It's in the garage somewhere. That's £180 down the drain

I was in BnQ yesterday to return some faulty garden chairs. I bought 4 boxed and got them home to find three of the four had cracks in the timber where they'd been joined badly. I insisted on opening the replacements beforebi took them away as its an hour round trip to bring things back. When I was ginished I had a pile of broken chairs as high as me to find three good ones. The Returns desk staff seemed to think it was hilarious. Anyway the old couple in front of me were returning a CO2 alarm because it "keeps going off". "I know it's not doing it now dear but at home it keeps going off". Not that it's any of my business I suggested that "maybe you have a CO2 leak". She looked at me like I was mad and said "We don't want it for home, we want it to take to Spain on holiday".
I guess good old british CO2 is fine.

Jammybstard wrote: "I know it's not doing it now dear but at home it keeps going off". Not that it's any of my business I suggested that "maybe you have a CO2 leak". She looked at me like I was mad and said "We don't want it for home, we want it to take to Spain on holiday".
I guess good old british CO2 is fine.

I presume you mean CO?

Sorry I am NOT on my "spelling horse", its just that there is a major difference between CO (carbon monoxide) and CO2 (carbon dioxide)

Shame on me you're absolutely right.
I spend quite a bit of time on jimshomebrew forum talking about CO2 volumes. I must have been on autopilot.

someone-else wrote:I can't help but wonder, is he the sort of person that would say "we get lots of these returned"

No, I don't think he would do that.


I have been going there for years and I do trust him, he did look quite shocked when I returned the alarms.

He still sells them, so I must just have been really unlucky. If they were not reliable I am sure he would stop selling them

ultimatehandyman wrote:He still sells them, so I must just have been really unlucky. If they were not reliable I am sure he would stop selling them

Perhaps he brought a big box full of them...............