3am scare...

[Gelicious]

I wasnt going to post about this but its been eating at me all day.

Last night at almost exactly 3am our fire alarm went off. My wife and I were awakend by it and got out of bed quite quickly. Our daughter is spending the week with my mom out of town. At 3 am, that information was not fresh in my mind, I moved as fast as i could to my daughters room which is only about 10 feet from ours. She wasnt there and there was no smoke or fire from her room. The wife reminded me over the screaming fire alarm that she was not home. The wife ran upstairs to check for the cause of the fire alarm. All i can remember is how fast she ran up there and how slow i was to follow. I called out to her from the staircase asking her where the smoke was comming from and to stay low... She screamed back that the smoke detectors were not going off up there... its only downstairs.
I ran to the bath room...nothing... laundry room...again nothing... I ran to the screaming smoke detector and "fanned" the sensor and it stoped.

We turned on all the lights.. checked every electrical outlet in the house. The smoke detectors in this house run on the same power as the house. No batteries to replace, and there isnt a backup 9V battery in it incase the power goes out... which i think is stupid.

After 30 mins of checking and making sure, i ruled it a false alarm and we tried our best to fall back to sleep.


Now this is what im beating myself up about.. All while this was going on I diddnt even for a minute think to get the bedside gun. I will openly admit that at 3am my brain was not in top shape but we were so worried about a possible fire, i diddnt even think that a "BG" could be messing with the house trying to throw us off guard, so that he could invade.


Am I right to beat myself up for it? should I have had my weapon at the ready?

What would you have done.. now remember... even though you think you can for sure be 100% after being woken up from a DEAD sleep, you cant.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[elance]

ok a couple of things is it a smoke detector / monoxide detector ?

were you running the furnace ?

is it also tied into the burgular alarm in which case warranted the gun ?

also aren't they supposed to ALL go off when wired as yours are especially upstairs ?

and good that one of you stayed downstairs while the other investigated it . but going upstairs is not a good idea .

ok check all this out for yours and my piece of mind .

elance

[Gelicious]

It is not a monoxide alarm. All the heat downstairs comes from space heaters built into the wall that are electric. No furnace, but upstiars we have a Gas heater that remains off when not attended. I dont know what the deal is with all of them not going off. that was very strange.

Going upstairs could be a bad idea but evacuating the house from downstairs without first checking upstairs could be a mistake too.. It all depends on the situation.

All of the questions you asked ran through my mind today. I find it weird too. I have a call into the landlord to report the smoke detector problem.

[TN_Mike]

I wouldn't worry about beating yourself up for not grabbing the bedside gun. It was the smoke detector, not breaking glass. You protected your family in the proper way for the situation.

Smoke detectors work by "catching" a smoke particle that either completes or opens a circuit. Sometimes a small enough speck of dust can serve as the particle that does this. Or, a small puff of not visible smoke may come from an appliance switching on...any number of things could have caused it. As long as you didn't have an actual fire I would think you are good.

[Gelicious]

LOL after doing some research on the smoke detector website, I believe you are correct SIG. Dust... but something thats funny... Acording to some people the supernatural Ecto-plasam formed by ghosts trying to manifest themselves can cause smoke detectors to go off..

LOL I got dusty Ghosts.

Thanks for the words of encouragment.

[aepilotjim]

I wouldn't beat yourself up over not grabing the shotgun.

You were thinking about the fire alarm, not home invasion. So, that's where your mind is at in working the problem. It's sort of the one thing at a time rule. As a pilot, during recurrent training, I see this alot. Problem one pops up, say low oil pressure. Now, we start working that problem, and then engine fire light comes on half way through the oil checklist. Problem two, but now we've got to switch gears in mid stream. It's a definate adjustment.

There's nothing I can say to help, other than game out the different scenarios. If you have a set number of actions that you do for any situation, that would be best. Somethings that are generic to any situation and after those you can isolate the problem and work it to a solution.

[Ride4TheBrand]

Hmmm.. a new business:

Ghost detectors.

[Lew]

If it continues to go off, correct your prior neglect of a gun by letting go with a nice round of number 1 buck shot to the offending smoke detector. That'll Shut it up. Nothing like 16 .30 caliber pellets to shut up annoying electonic devices....OK so I am being a smart alec but it is a pleasant thought up until the wife asks you what you are doing with the shotgun...."uh, just didn't want to trip on it dear..."

[Muzz]

I think aepilotjim summed up your reaction about right. Also, like Sig said, it was a smoke detector, not breaking glass. We also rent our current residence, but we are lucky enough to be able to bring our Rottweiler mix in at night - seperate fire and (interactive) burglar alarms...

A smoke alarm going off in the middle of the night will get the ole heart to pumping, won't it? Ours went off around 4AM about 2 years ago, only I immediately smelled argon (that is the right gas for an electric short, right?), and saw smoke... Luckily, it was only the blower motor in the central air unit giving up the ghost - it threw the breaker before anything ignited.

[Chorizo]

Smoke detectors work by "catching" a smoke particle that either completes or opens a circuit. Sometimes a small enough speck of dust can serve as the particle that does this.

Sig p239 beat me to the answer. I had one that used to do it every so often because of dust particles when the wind blew up dust from the fields around my house until I replaced it. When they go off at 3 AM it does make the old anal orifice pucker up.

Get a new one, the few bucks is worth the peace of mind.