WNY Handyman

Kidde 1275 a Bad Smoke Detector

Consider this a review of the Kidde 1275 smoke detecor. READ the comments below. Summary: This is a unit you do not want to purchase!

Replacement smoke alarm on Amazon

If you have a Kidde 1275 smoke alarm. Be prepared for a false alarm. Well, it might never happen, but based on the
reviews of the Kidde 1275 at Amazon.com you won’t be the only one if your alarm does go off on its own.

Kidde 1275 smoke alarm Of course I am not writing this out of the blue. Many builders will install these units in new builds. They are inexpensive hard-wired smoke detectors. However, it isn’t uncommon for these units to be defective, or to go bad and go off in the middle of the night. Ours went off on Friday night at 3 AM, and then at 4 AM. I was able to find the offending unit by simply blowing up at it and setting the alarm off again. I can honestly say that you will probably not sleep as well with the feeling that your alarm will go off in the middle of the night.

Since this is a hard wired system, every detector will sound when the alarm is triggered. If you have young children, I can assure you that this is something that they will not forget. When this happened last year, we brushed it off as a one time event. My son, who was 3 at the time, kept his fan on for a couple of months because he thought that would stop the alarm from sounding.

One nice thing is that you can locate the offending alarm. It will be the unit that is blinking after the alarm goes off. In my case, I simply pulled the unit from the system. I was pretty certain that it was bad when I was able to set it off by simply blowing on the alarm from 5 feet away.

I write this review in hopes that this does not happen to you. If you are building, or outfitting your house with new smoke detectors, I would recommend that you avoid the Kidde 1275. It received 1 star out of 5 for a reason.

The following is an alternative unit that can utilize the same connection as your 1275 / 1285. It is still from Kidde, but the reviews on the unit are good. Might be worth a look:

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Comments

123 responses to “Kidde 1275 a Bad Smoke Detector”

  1. Tim Brady

    The same thing happened in my new house. I spoke with the company and they refuse to stand by their warranty.

  2. AC Green

    I had the exact same thing happen in our house after 6 years of normal operation (and replacing the 9-volt batteries regularly). There was no explanation for the alarm – customer service said a spider might have set it off, but I’m a little skeptical. I’ll give the system one more chance then replace it. Not the best way to wake up in the morning!

  3. Eddie

    Same thing happened to us. It is 4:21am right now and I was on the internet looking up what could’ve possibly set off my alarm. This article is going to allow my wife to sleep better now. Any recommendations for a replacement??

  4. Administrator

    Eddie,
    I wish that I had advice about a good replacement. My wife went out and purchased some battery operated units. If I hear one more person tell me they called Kidde and a Kidde rep told them that it “must have been a spider” I am going to scream. I have to admit that when mine first happened, I found comfort in the fact that MANY others had the same issue. I found my information in the reviews at Amazon.com.
    Good luck. You might want to call the company and ask for replacements. I have heard some people say that they will provide them.

  5. Stanley Perper

    I am having the same problem. I have 5 units with problems in 3.and I was able to make the problem “move” by swapping units. Mine have gone off in rooms where the AC/heat was not running, there was no fan, and the room (and entire wing of the house) was not occupied. Curiously, mine also have only gone off in the middle of the night.

  6. Matt

    I don’t want to come off as an alarmist here or anything, but we lost our house to a fire back in December. The odd thing was, that our smoke detectors never went off. We were awake at the time and able to get the attic fire out initially, but lost the house to a rekindle later that night while staying at a relatives.

    Just for everyones information, please keep an eye on your home after a fire if it ever happens. Rekindles are very common so we were told, had we known to keep an eye on it we might not have lost so much.

    The fire inspector traced the origin back to, of all things our smoke detector in the master bedroom. Probably due to bad wiring of the system, not the detector itself.

    Insurance has been great to us through all of this, they put us up in a very nice rental home while our house is rebuilt. Needless to say a few weeks after the fire we we’re jittery, so when the smoke alarms went of on New Years Day for no reason we we’re ready to get a different place! But, the landlord traced the faulty alarm and replaced it no problems since.

    Its my hope that by sharing this information that people become educated about their smoke detection systems and keep them maintained.

  7. Administrator

    Matt,

    Thanks for sharing your story. It would be great if everything worked perfectly. I suppose it is better for them to work when there is not an issue than to not work when there is.

  8. john

    Same thing happend to me at 12:30 this morning in our master bedroom. New build with the 1275 installed. It lasted about 10 seconds or so. It shut itself off. Do I have to reset it and how can i help to prevent it from happening again?

    Thanks

  9. Administrator

    John,
    Not sure that you can “prevent” this from happening again without swapping out the units. I had another set go off at a house I am renovating right now. It was in the middle of the day (high dust and humidity though). They started going off and I couldn’t do anything but laugh when I noticed the brand and model! In my own home, we replaced them with different units.
    Bob L.

  10. B

    This just happened to me. It’s now 5:37am after 2 false alarms within about 10 minutes of each other. BUT… I’m renting this house and there is only one alarm that is not connected to any others. So only one is going off. It’s a Kidde but the landlord installed it, so I have no idea what model it is. I just know it’s made to ignore things like burning toast and it’s hard-wired. Seems likely it would be this one if it’s the cheapest cause our landlord is extremely cheap.

    I did actually notice webs attached to it when I looked closely and we have had a problem with a lot of spiders before, so now I really wonder. I cleaned up the webs on the ceiling and tomorrow will vacuum the area, and see if this happens again.

  11. Administrator

    The stories continue to come in. I suppose it isn’t a safety issue, as Matt pointed out, so it isn’t a big concern to them. Maybe the less expensive parts fail more often. Lighter gauge sensors, etc.

  12. R

    I built our house and used Kidde 1275 units. It’s 3 stories so I used 1 on each floor and 1 in each bedroom for a total of 6, plus a Kidde carbon monoxide alarm in the system. Three years ago, shortly after installing the units and moving in, they’d start going off for no reason. Always between 3 and 5 am. I called Kidde and they suggested the cause was dust due to new construction. They suggested using a a hair dryer to clean the units. I cleaned them but still got false alarms. I ultimately left the 3rd floor unit disconnected. Since then, there have been several episodes each year since. Now, they’ve gone off two nights in a row. First at 3 am. This morning at 5 am. Each time I removed several units. This morning, there were actually 2 episodes and after the second one I removed the CO detector. Now, out of 7 units, I’ve got 1 smoke alarm left. What a disappointment these units are.

  13. Administrator

    It is shocking that they continue to sell such a bad unit. The part that amazes me is that they go off in the middle of the night. There must be some reason for that. My wife replaced ours with battery operated units. KIDDE, you must improve that product. The Kidde 1275 is a piece of garbage!

  14. David in Charlotte, NC

    Same problem – always giving false alarms at 3am. In addition to that, here’s the thing that really bugs me that nobody else has mentioned: These are AC powered units with battery backup. Yet the batteries need to be replaced about every year. So the detectors are actually draining the batteries at the same rate that non-AC powered detectors do. WHY HAVE AC POWER TO THEM IF YOU HAVE TO REPLACE THE BATTERIES EVERY YEAR ANYWAY??? I have eleven of these in my house, so replacing the batteries can be quite expensive and time consuming! I know this is not due to the “shelf life” of the battery expiring – many batteries I have removed have a shelf-life expiration date printed on them showing shelf life for years after the detector has drained the life out of them. THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST PRODUCTS I HAVE EVER BOUGHT! KIDDE SHOULD FACE A CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT!

  15. Laura

    Oh my goodness. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see this post. Thank you so much! All 7 alarms in my house went off at 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday and I was home alone. I’ve never been so scared. Nothing I did stopped them from going on and off for two hours. I haven’t been able to sleep since because I’m afraid of getting shocked out of bed again. These are terrible and I’m taking them all down tonight so I can sleep in peace! Luckily, I have a couple of ADT smoke detectors, so I’m not going completely without smoke detection tonight.

  16. Administrator

    Laura,

    It is amazing how many people have had this issue. I am really floored at the number of alarms that have gone off in the middle of the night. I was in your same shoes and was happy to find that this was a defective unit and not a smoldering fire, or CO issue. Happy you found us.

    WNYHandyman.com

  17. Dick

    I have 3 units. One of these smoke detectors keeps going off about ever other night. It does not go full blast but chirps. This is the only one that does it so far. The others do not make a sound yet. I thought that if one went off, since they were hard wired together, that the others would also go off. This is also model 1275.

    Dick

  18. Administrator

    Dick,
    That chirp is probably just the battery indicator. Even though they are hard wired, they still have batteries in case the power is out. Replace the battery and the chirp should go away.
    WNYHandyman.com

  19. Jodi

    Wow, i thought i was crazy. We have had this problem with Kiddie(not sure of model #) off and on for a year. They used to be wired with our house alarm, that just got too crazy. They came and un-wired, and capped them off. You guessed it, the no longer wired smoke alarms still going off. The times were also between 3am and 5am. I replace my batteries every 3 months and clean with vacuum. No humidity, cooking or dusty areas. If someone figures this out pls let me know. It takes forever to get my baby back to sleep after all the nonsense.

  20. brian tome

    OK… we all have the same problem. What is the solution?” is the 1275e that kidde is offering a fix/upgrade? Id like to find something else to plug into the hardwiring of my house.

  21. Winston

    My house is wired with these models and I’m not at all satisfied with them. On 11/1/08 around 3AM (it seems to always be early in the morning for everyone) all my alarms went off more than normal – probably 1 minute or so. I have about 12 of them in my house. There was an electrical burn smell in one of the bedrooms my visiting inlaws were staying in. Sure enough, it was the smoke alarm itself that burned up! I unwired it and pulled the thing down and it was brown and stinky. The wiring appeared to be fine. It says on the back to replace after 10 years but according to the label this was made in on 1/10/2000. My house was built in late 2000 and finished March 2001. I’m replacing all of them after this since I have two small kids in the house. We do have the early morning ‘three chirps’ as well about 4 times per year. Why do these things ONLY go off between 2AM – 5AM? Shame.

  22. RealtySpree.com

    The number of comments that share the same story is simply amazing. Who would want these units in their home?

    You would think that this unit would be out of service at this point. Incredible.

  23. Louis Johnson

    Incredible! our house was built in 2001 with the Kidde 1275 system. You guessed it – alarms going off during the night (usually between 2am – 4am). Several months ago I isolated the problem alarm (it was in our girls room) and took it down. Since then, no problems. I talked to Kidde and they said the system was out of warranty and recommended I purchase an upgrade replacement. I now wonder if I should replace all units with another brand altogether. We have 3 young children and they are terrified when these things startle them awake (doesn’t make their old man any happier, either). So glad to read we are not alone!

  24. Administrator

    Again, just crazy that these units have this issue. Our house was built in 2002 with the 1275’s. Very hard to believe that spiders, or dust caused the middle of the night alarm.

    My son is 6 now and seems to have finally gotten over the alarm from a couple years back.

  25. Lydia

    Seems like it’s a Kidde problem! I think Kidde Nighthawk AC Combination Smoke & CO Alarm KN-COSM-IB 900-0114 is a newer model, installed in my rented place. Yes, I’m up at 5.40am writing this, the alarm went off at 4am, red light blinking (I think it’s the CO factor). Pushing the hush button silences it for a while but goes off every 15mins. I used a tap to stick down the hush alarm button, hope this works but I hasn’t gone off since then (but it’s after 5am already). Not sure if it’s still functioning by doing that. It’s only my 2nd day here at this apartment and I hope this won’t happen every night!

  26. Chris

    I have a question
    in my apartment, kidde smoke detector is installed (I dont know the model number but it looks like the one in the picture up there)
    i turned off the switch of the detector in a fuse box and after few seconds, the alarm went off
    so I turned on the switch and it stopped
    but since that, the red light starts blinking
    (I guess its because the unit is blinking after the alarm goes off like you said .. )

    is there anyway that i can turn the red light off?
    the alarm didnt go off again after that
    but im getting really annoyed by that..

  27. Lori

    Thanks everyone for posting. Although our first Kidde Smoke Alarm Model i12020 waited to go off at 8:00 a.m., it is New Year’s Day. It wasn’t until they all (7 of them) began to scream throughout the house at 9 a.m. that we pulled ourselves out of bed. The kids were not thrilled about the New Year beginning. We pulled them all from the hard wire to shut them up and put them outside and blew them with air. Then one began to scream again. I grabbed my glasses and began to read the 4 point font on the back of the alarm to figure out why they all decided to wake the neighborhood. While I straining to read, a small white spider bolted from my lap. I’m not sure if I was sleeping with that little guy but there it was. All the post point to one main faulty alarm triggering the group and a possible spider as the cause of alarm malfunction. So thanks for posting! The Kidde product is too high maintenance for my lifestyle. I wouldn’t install them in my primary real estate.

  28. rosaline

    Wow. I can’t beleive that this is happening to so many people. We built our house five years ago and Kiddie was installed. This past smmer the alarms started going off over the slightests smoke ~ oven, toater, car fumes , etc. THey would’t shut off! We had to disconnct all of them (6). We also have Master Guard in our house (wonderful product but pricy) and none of them went off. Today ~ out of the blue ~ the alarms were tripped again. For no reason at all. All of the were cleaned and had new batteries this past fall. I am wondering if the hardwire system is compatable with other alarms. Does anyone know? I am dumping the Kiddie. I went through a house fire once before and every time the darn things go off it freaks me out. By the way, the alarms in the house that burned were wonderful. They were installed incorectly and they still worked. The firemen pried it off the wall (wasn’t on the ceiling) where it had melted and it was still beeping.

  29. Joe

    I’ve had the same problem with 3 of the 6 Kiddie model 1275 smoke detectors installed in my home. False alarms at 2 – 5 AM. Why only in the early morning hours? Something very strange going on here.

  30. Alesia

    I am up at 1 in the morning the first time and then every 30 mins after that, and the trip is it is a 12040 model that is keep going off. I am so tired of buying stuff that just wont work. This is so dangerous, what if there is a real fire you just might sleep too long because ypu might think it is a false alarm. I am taking them all down and buying something else.

  31. G.

    I am glad that I ran across this. We have had probelms off and on and oddly, at night. I would know as I am a stay at home mom and I am home most of the day. It actually just went off again for the 2nd time in 5 minutes even though my Dh went and blew air into what we think is the offending unit and replaced the battery too! OM gosh! And before that it was 3 weeks ago! Our problem is that we have 8 detectors up and down and I am afraid to turn the heat on as it might cause a full blown alarm! I am reading to uplug all of them so we can sleep. We have reset it, changed the battery and now cleaned the only one that is blinking and still……

  32. hell on wheels

    The comment below was approved to show the level of frustration that homeowners have with these Kidde smoke detectors. It has been edited to blank the cursing, but read it with those words in your head. This is absolutely the feeling you have when you have kids and this is going on. Only to find that it is a false alarm due to a bad product.
    =================================================
    F**K F**K F**K —

    it’s 4 AM last night — or this morning — whatever the f**k you call it —

    — and the f**king fire alarms go off — f**king YELLING — “FIRE FIRE FIRE” —

    my WORST f**king nightmare.

    the dogs flip out.

    i get out the broomstick, looking around for fire, and running to each alarm, pushing these f**k’s “buttons” —

    nothing works. in the basement, in the house, these F**KS are SCREAMING and BEEPING like little wh***s — ALL AT THE SAME TIME — & OF THEM.

    so, i go to the garage in my f**king underwear and get the 8′ f**king ladder. i then cram it around the house, getting it set up, almost marring the walls.

    nope — each f**king alarm keeps screaming “FIRE FIRE FIRE” —

    i take the one in the basement down. the wh***s are still screaming.

    i take the one in the bedroom down — more f**king screaming — kitchen, the same —

    — these are 11′ ceilings, mind you —

    the two “kids” bedrooms — more screaming. the hallway — MORE F**KING SCREAMING.

    then, i carry the a**hole ladder to the attic, and 20′ up is the last little wh**e, screaming – FIRE FIRE FIRE.

    i take it down, an hour after it starts, and rip the f**king battery out of it —

    — everything stops.

    then, getting ready for work, the little f**kers are sitting on the countertop, and one starts going off.

    no fires anywhere.

    f**kers.

    i ordered 7 new ones — different ones.

    these bastard are cheap a**hole sh*t — i found —

    http://www.wnyhandyman.com/kidde-1275-a-bad-smoke-detector/

    i emailed the link to my builder and said YOU will save MONEY in reduced COMPLAINT CALLS by NOT INSTALLING such SH*T in your CUSTOM HOMES.

    wh***s.

  33. Doug

    We’ve had the same problems with the 1275. We have a four unit apt building and live in one of the units and code requires that each unit have interconnected, hard-wired detectors. The false alarms always seem to happen at night and usually between 11 PM and 6 AM. One of us works out of the house and this doesn’t happen in the daytime. We have power fluctuations on our island (Key West) and I suspect that these units are sensitive to that. My electrician said that these units “wear out” after several years and start giving false alarms. I’m also suspicious of dust. Try blowing your detector out with a can of air and see what comes out. You might be surprised.

  34. Juan Arroyo

    After having our alarm go off – (Not the first time) I found this post. I am buying new ones in the morning. Our house is only a year old. Does anyone have any reccomendations?

  35. Davo

    I have 8 of these annoying things in my house. I have 3 of the Kidde 1275’s and 5 of the 1273’s. they have been installed for about 1.5 years now and have recently started going off for no reason. The first few times it happened, it was the one in my daughter’s room downstairs that was setting them all off. I moved it upstairs to my son’s room and that (or so I thought) seemed to fix the issue. Well, this morning it happened again. This time it is the one in my other daughter’s room which is also downstairs. The interesting thing about it is that every time they went off, it was during early morning hours between 1am and 5am. Nothing had been running at the time, not the furnace, not the water heater, no fans, no A/C, no nothing! The 1273’s are the ones giving me trouble right now. The 1275’s haven’t given any false alarms yet, but I guess I should expect it pretty soon. We get what we pay for I suppose.

  36. Mike

    1275 unit three chirps happening a lot ….oh yeah….it’s 4:30 am

  37. Meghan

    Ours went off twice this morning…at 5 and 530 am…came across this site trying to figure out whats wrong. We have a two year old home…
    My kids are tired and cranky, we’re tired and cranky. These alarms suck! I almost burnt the house down trying to fry chicken, and the alarms never went off. They have no problem alerting us of NOTHING in the middle of the night though!

  38. T

    I have the same problem – always 3 or 4 am – seems like I have 2 defective ones. I have a total of 9 in series – very AGGRIVATING.

  39. T

    One more thing I wanted to add – You can tell which one is failing by looking for a blinking green light.

    ALSO – I have white ceilings and white walls and these peices of crap will turn yellow in just 2 years. No smokers live here and we keep our home very clean.

    These smoke detectors are nothing but CRAP!

  40. Jay Bass

    After researching Kidde model 1275 I learned that it has been
    replaced with Kidde nidel i12040. As some of you discovered, there
    is a date inside the cover and the whole unit (not just the backup
    battery) has to be replaced periodically (6-8 years) because the ionizing function wears out. When it needs replacement it will chirp.

  41. Dennis Kretzschmar

    I too had some hard-wired Kidde smoke detectors go off at midnight for about 5 sec. Silence until 15 minutes later and they went off again. This repeated a total of 4 times, at which point I pulled the CB and was able to go back to sleep.

    With all these comments and one suggestion that electrical “noise” may have set them off, what are the electrical companies doing during the night to the power. Are they changing voltage or power factors and the Kidde unites are not robust enough to tolerate?

    1. Administrator

      Dennis,

      You are clearly not alone. These units definitely have a defect.

  42. Jim Warner

    I have 4 of these units in my house built in 2002. The batteries are replaced when the chirping sound denotes a weak battery. I have replaced batteries twice in 7 years. The secret is to use a top of line battery as the manual states.

  43. BBartlett

    4 units all hard-wired.

    3:45 this morning….all 4 kidde smoke detectors were going off. My 2yr. old was crying, my wife was trembling and I was running down the hallway trying to figure out what was going on. 5 seconds later the unpleasant sound was gone.

    My son calmed down, my dog stopped barking and we all went back to bed. 4:00am…high-pitched chirping, buzzing, lights flashing, hearts racing. I jumped out of bed and did the hallway sprint one more time. I discovered that the front bedroom unit was the culprit. I pushed the buttons several times, with force I might add and the units finally stopped.

    My wife was scrambling to find the user manual to see what could be wrong. The manual was no help at all. I did notice a small knat on the unit the second time. Not sure if that was the culprit, but it sounds like it could have been.

    9am. I called my electrician who installed these units a little over a year ago and told him what was going on. I suggested he stay away from these units, run for the hills if he is offered one and look for an alternate.

    Thank you to all who have shared. I am looking for new units this afternoon!!

  44. tom fretton

    @hell on wheels
    If you can’t express yourself without using your foul language, hopefully your alarms will go off repeatedly every 15 minutes. Apparently you use this filthy mouth among your family environment. Definitely white trash.

  45. j in tennessee

    well, now I can go back to sleep for at least another hour…all 3 of ours went off at 4:30am exactly 3 years to the date we moved in! I was thinking for sure these all had some kind of timer on them set as a practical joke by our previous owners….why in the world do these go off in the middle of the night? That’s some kind of manufacture trigger if you ask me. Having been in a major house fire as a child, this has really freaked me out, but glad I found this site! Gonna be a lovely day at work tomorrow indeed!! Grrr!!

  46. teaddy

    well mines went off about 4am, scared the crap out of me. it sounded off and then yelled fire one time. I ran around the house looking for fire nothing. it hasnt gone off again but im still nervous, thanks for the post tho.

  47. T in de

    I am not sure exactly what model mine is but its a kiddie its hardwired with a battery backup. Mine has gone off every morning around 3-4 am. I have 2. One night it will be one another night the other. It rarely goes off in the day. They are brand new no spider webs etc. But as most say I am startled when awaken in the wee hrs of morn by these things going off. Here’s the thing, when it goes off it only rings 4 times then shuts itself off. When it first happened I was unable to sleep but now its almost like I expect it but losing much needed sleep.

  48. Sam

    MADE IN CHINA

    Venture to guess how many will die from fires BECAUSE of defective detectors?

    1. Administrator

      Sam,

      One positive note is that they appear to all have false positives. Too sensitive. Let’s hope anyway. If we cut everything out that is manufactured in China, you would have to throw your computer, cell phone, tv and radio away right now. I wonder if there is a US manufacturer of smoke detectors/fire alarms.

      Anyone?

  49. Sam

    “computer, cell phone, tv and radio”

    None of the items on your list are “life and death” devices

    If there’s one thing our government SHOULD do is to take this crap off the market. 99% of what gov’t does is a waste and intrusion but stopping this would be welcomed here.

  50. Administrator

    You are right Sam.

    “If there’s one thing our government SHOULD do is to take this crap off the market. 99% of what gov’t does is a waste and intrusion but stopping this would be welcomed here.”

    I guess the testers of these units (UL?) do their testing during the day. These beauties tend to go off around 3 in the morning!

  51. Tom

    Our Kidde 1275s (I believe)false alarmed twice this morning– first around 3:30am then again around 3:45am. They beeped a three or four times then stopped by themselves. After checking the whole house, I’m convinced there is no source of smoke/fire. I have three hardwired Kidde units that I installed as routine maintenance replacements about 2 years ago– I don’t know brand of units I replaced but they never false alarmed for 10 years.

    Since most others on this post report the false alarm at night, I too am wondering if voltage fluctuations could be the cause. I live in the DC area and tonight is fairly hot/muggy so everyone is demanding power for AC units. We’ve also experienced brownouts in the past, but not tonight as the digital clocks didn’t reset. Any EEs on this post that can comment on whether a voltage fluctuation could set off the alarm?

    Finally, as I was checking each alarm, I didn’t notice some type of bug on the wall near one of the alarms. I didn’t notice if that was the offending alarm that tripped the others.

    Tom

  52. John Riegel

    This just happened to me last night! It went off three times for no reason what so ever and then again an hour and a half later. I pulled the detector that was blinking green and have not had a problem since. Does anyone have any suggestions? What model/unit should I replace it with? Thanks for your input, and I will look more closely at the detectors that I have, and purchase in the future!

  53. Bill Benson

    We have had the exact same problem with ours the other posters here have discussed. I am assuming it is fruitless to call the manufacturer based on the comments here as well. My family is up again at 1:00 am because of these apparently faulty units and needless to say we are very frustrated and now face the expense of replacing them all.

  54. F. Swinhart

    Up this morning at 2:45am because of our KIDDE units. This is NOT the first time we have been awakened by these alarms, but it will be the last. Out of sheer frustration, most of them were RIPPED off of the ceiling and broken in half trying to remove the batteries. Suffice to say we are looking for replacements.

  55. Patty

    Thank god I am not alone in this! Our model 1285’s started going off at 3:00 and again at 3:45 this morning. Looks like its time to replace them all since my heart is still racing after being startled awake like that, not a good thing for a woman who is 7 months pregnant.

  56. Dan from Gladstone

    Amazing that no one talks about cleaning the unit out with a vacuum cleaner, as recommended by the manual, everytime they change the battery. I have had 8 units connected together in my house without false alarms, and the units are now almost 10 years old, time to replace them. I have been woke up by the low battery chirp from one unit, but I don’t change the batteries until the unit indicates it is needed. The batteries last about 3 years, standard Duracell’s. Whenever I change the battery, since I have the unit off the ceiling, I vacuum it out with a strong vacuum.

    I will echo any complaints about how difficult it is to get the A/C plug/clip off the unit sometimes. Poor design.

  57. Richmond VA

    I have a similar story – except that my alarms began screaming at 1:00 am. No fire or smoke. I checked the brand/model and yes it is the Kidde 1275. I went online and found this website, and while it’s a shame to see so many posts on this poor product, it’s comforting to know I’m not alone. The house was built in 2002. It’s not surprising to know that builders go with the cheapest product. In 2006 we had an addition built and used First Alert detectors. We’ll be installing those in the rest of the house soon.

    1. Administrator

      Bob,

      Same story with many of these. My house was also built around 2002. I agree, finding the information did give me some comfort. I am happy the site helped. Let us know how the install of the First Alert unit works out. Do you need to rewire, or is the connector the same?

  58. Hamilton, VA

    We have hard-wired Kidde units (not sure what model #, I’ll have to check when I get home) We were awakened about 5am by the smoke detectors. Startled, we jumped up and ran to the kids room -there were 2 smoke detectors in the hallway and one in another bedroom that were sounding (they must be connected). None of the others in the house were going off (we have 16, give or take a couple). In the commotion I thought it seemed ‘hazy’ or ‘smoky’, but I believe that was just blurred vision from being startled awake. Oddly, we smelled nothing, could find nothing wrong. My husband ran into the attic, down to the basement, in every room (even though the sounding alarms were isolated to the upstairs, when they were screaming at us for 10 minutes it was hard to tell if more were going off). He even ran outside (it was raining) to see if there was smoke coming from somewhere. When we were a bit calmed and convinced nothing was on fire – I looked on the internet and found these posts. My husband got the ladder and pulled down the detector that was blinking green and slow red (the two on either side were blinking green and fast red, so we think not the culprits). After reading some posts, my husband admitted that there was a spider hanging from that detector. Hmmm. Well, I hope that’s all it was – but of course now I have a complete lack of confidence in not only our detectors, but our botched ‘family fire plan’…we did horribly. I can only think that’s because we were confused that there was NO FIRE OR SMOKE. Well, I am going to vacuum the units I guess, and work on our family fire plan just in case. With as many units as we have, I feel safer that we are ‘covered’, but on the other hand we just have more risk of false alarms. Good luck everyone.

    1. Administrator

      It amazes me that so many of the “defective Kidde 1275‘s” go off during the first 10 days of September. Really strange. My hunch is that the warm days followed by cool/damp nights might have something to do with it. Who knows? Kidde?

  59. Gena Kellar

    Kidde 1275 going off at 2:30 AM FOR THE LAST 3 MORNINGS. TRIED RESETTING – DID NOT WORK – THEN TRIED TO GET THE AC ADAPTER OFF – VERY HARD – IN FACT THE BACK WIRE BROKE FIRST – THEN THE ADAPTER CAME OFF AND WE WERE ABLE TO REMOVE THE BATTERY – IN HOPES OF REPLACING IT – BUT NOW WE HAVE TO HAVE THE BLACK WIRE REATTACHED. WHAT WILL THAT COST???????

  60. Scott from Utah

    I have Installed dozens of houses with Kidde / Fire X smokes and smoke CO’s it seems that about one in eight installs have this problem in the first 3 months. This has cost my company hundreds and made customers very unhappy last time was in 2009 somebody should sue these @$$ holes for still selling this crap when they know it is defective. I will never trust one of there products again. P.S don’t trust them when they tell you they have fixed the
    problem in the newer product.

  61. Leslie from Oregon

    We purchased our house 8 years ago (new construction) and have had nothing but heartache with these units. They are constantly going off, and sometimes you just can’t stop them. Today was the kicker. I was reading to my 4 year old downstairs when all the alarms went off. I immediatly went looking for any sign of smoke and found nothing. However when I entered my sons bedroom I was welcomed with a horrible smell. It was nowhere else in the house. I called my neighbor (both husband and wife are firefighters) and they came over to inspect. They detected no sign of fire but couldn’t explain the smell in my sons room. Then my neighbor decided to inspect the alarm itself, and when he took it down the odor became worse! He turned it over and the thing had melted inside! It said on the side “replace after 10 years”. I say replace them NOW! Piecs of junk!

    1. Administrator

      Leslie,

      That has got to be one of the worst stories I have heard about the Kidde units. Not only do they wake you up with false positives, but this unit appears to have been the actual hazard rather than the alarm that it is supposed to be.

      Avoid the Kidde 1275’s!

  62. Kelly Brown

    Our Kidde (not sure if it’s a 1275 model) smoke alarm went off at 5am this morning – sounding three times then stopping, then a couple of minutes later sounding twice more – not the battery warning sound the proper alarm sound. After waking up very suddenly and charging around the flat checking for smoke or fire we calmed down and then noticed a very “guilty” looking spider crawling away from the alarm in the hall way. After reading these posts and doing a little research it looks like this could have been the cause! In the tired, shocked state I was in in the early hours of this morning I didn’t think to get rid of the spider – hope it doesn’t go for a wander near the smoke alarm again if it’s still about!

  63. Sean

    Mine work fine. I have five (5) interconnected model #1285 throughout my home, and have not had a problem. Once I burned some toast and set them off, but other than that, no false alarms. I do keep the dust down in the house, and have 3 dogs and cats that I have to constantly have to vacuum up after. One factor maybe carpeted floors. Since building this home five years ago (when the alarms were installed), I went with hardwood and tile throughout. I have noticed a marked decrease in dust within the home. Could this be part of your problem?? New carpet, which sometimes has a lot of “flurries” once installed, or perhaps an old carpet that has since degraded, causing a similar these false alarms. I also take an air compressor lightly to the units when changing the batteries, so that may help. Whatever the source of your problem, find a solution, as these little babies may save you and yours. Good Luck, Sean

  64. jami

    this is crazy! one of our just went off last night at 4:30 AM! i thought i was going to have a heart attack! before reading this i did figure out it was the blinking one that needed to be changed. we are still unsure as to what set it off very uneasy feeling all day and im sure for many nights to come.

  65. Joe Cantalice

    I have my 1275 for about 8 years…. only had one false alarm.

    but I get the chirp from time to time….indicating low battery….. but when I test the battery, i get a strong
    reading….. could it be that the battery MUST HAVE FULL CHARGE to eliminate the chirp?

  66. randy

    Seems to be a quality control problem at factory. obviously the manufacture is not improving their smoke alarms. i have a model 2060. which has the same problem of randomly going off. Have changed battery, cleaned unit, and relocated to a different area in house. unit date on back is jan 2008. will buy another unit for the fix, I hope

  67. charles

    My Kidde alarm went off at 3:30 am this morning and then again at 4:00 am. Seems this happens every 6 mos. or so–always in the wee hours of the morning. All these false positives are making it difficult to keep my two children serious about the alarms.

  68. Replacement for the Kidde 1275 | WNY Handyman

    […] Read more about the experience many have had with the defective Kidde 1275 […]

  69. Dave

    4:45am and then 4:55am. Why am. ?? Our detectors sounded. All of them. I did the house run in 30 seconds. Nothing burning. Kids woke up, which is good. Our bedroom detector shows green followed by a slow red every minute or so. It’s a model i12060. April 2007. Changed battery. Same. Pulled it. I’m up now. Now what? Breakfast?

  70. Jason

    Our two Kidde alarms went off this morning at 1:36am. They went off several times…scared the crap out of me and my 6-month pregnant wife. I’m just glad she didn’t go into labor! Now, I didn’t see any spiders, but I did notice a dead lightening bug lying on the floor beneath the one detector. What are the chances that the bug may have been lured to the detector by the flashing green LED light and cause it to go off?? Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Either way, these crappy Kidde alarms are going in the trash tomorrow.

  71. Gina

    My heart is still racing. Model 1275 (x6) started screaming at 3:17 a.m. I have to work on my fire planning as I failed miserably. Instead of grabbing my animals and leaving the house I started tearing around the house looking for the fire. Thank goodness there wasn’t one. Looking to replace all units immediatly since reading all your posts, which have helped to slow my racing heart. Thank you for that.

  72. Wilson

    OMG. all of my detectors (8 of them) model 1275 just went apeChit. Didn’t know what to do so I went thru the house yanking every one of them out. this is not the first time either. What next?

  73. Trish

    Thank goodness I found this site. Same story with me! Three am, four am….near heart attacks. All batteries changed and still going off. Like others have said, GOD FORBID there be a actual fire! Nobody in this house will take it serious. Bummer….

    1. Administrator

      It is amazing how often this happens with this exact smoke detector. Like you, I was relieved when I found information that made it clear that this was a false alarm and not a real concern (Like CO).

  74. Mark

    Thank God I found this site..now maybe I can sleep with piece of mind..for 2hrs anyway.I am currently writing this at 3:16 am of course after running around my entire house with my nose in the air sniffing like a dog for non-existing smoke.I had a total of 3 false alarms starting at ~midnight to now.The Kidde 1275 were installed when house was built ~5yrs ago.the offending unit is currently lying on the ground in front of me, disembatteried.
    Oh well…Back to sleep I go

  75. Wayne

    Our main house and separate suite are connected together by 3 (new) hardwired Kidde detectors, on a well-tested low capacity house electrical circuit.

    So far I have tried all different models of Kidde and all end up double chirping usually in the wee hours of the morning. It’s random and sometimes it will go days or weeks without a peep then it’s wakey wakey time again. It’s like the little boy who cried wolf — how can we trust these things now?

    Kidde customer service and tech support is of NO help. But the local store has been good about returns ..at least unitl their generosity wears out.

    Interestingly, the previous units were Firex and they gave no trouble over their 9 years of life. Sadly, they were bought out by Kidde, and it seems Kidde never continued with the Firex quality.

    So, what to do, which other brand is a better choice?

    Sleepless in Victoria, BC

  76. Eddie

    Wait a minute. I thought I was the only one with this kind of problems. I had my house built 5 years ago and almost got used to being awaken about once a week. Always around 3:00 AM with false alarms from my Kidde interconnected smoke detectors. We have 9 of them in the house. At one point when the issue became more frequent and when neither new batteries or clening the units had any effect on false alarms, I bought all new units and installed fresh batteries. Yes, I just gave them MORE revenue. I bought the latest model too. That was a few months ago. Things seemed to be good for a couple of weeks, but the false alarms came back. Last night I had 6 false alarms from 3:08 AM to 4:50 AM. I had to go around the house and unplug them all. My wife, my kids and I could not sleep. What a way to start the week. Now, what are we supposed to do? Disconnect the detectors? In this case, if there is ever a fire, I’ll get in trouble with the insurance company. Do I live with the issue? I this case we will continue to have sleepless nights AND we won’t respond in case of real fires anyway, since we are so used to false alarms. I think the best way out is a class action law suit against this company.

  77. Rick

    I’ve been living with this for the past 5 years. Our problem is coming from the basement alarm, which triggers the rest. Usually, from 1-3 am. My thought was that is was caused by and insect like a spider. I’ll try the vacuum.

  78. John

    Just to let you all know that there is another side of the coin with the 1275’s. I have 9 installed in new construction 9 years ago. With 2 exceptions they have worked fine without false alarms. The two exceptions were defective units that appeared to give false alarms as you all describe, but were easily tracable to one unit which when replaced ended the problem. I’m thinking that some of your problems may be other things setting them off?? I’m coming up on the 10 year recommended replacement for all of them and will not hesitate to replace with 1275’s or equivalent.

  79. Kevin

    I bought 9 hardwired interconnected Model i12080 and they go off in the middle of the night every couple months. Last night it was 2:40am and then twice more at approx 2:50am and 3:00am. Kidde clearly has a major quality problem and aren’t interested in fixing at all. My units all show dates around mid 2008, so not even 3 years old but they have been doing this for years. I noticed they have an entire section in the manual for ‘nuisance alarms’ but it was of no help. So clearly they just acknowledge the flaw and just put it in the manual instead of fixing it. Will never buy a Kidde product again.

  80. James

    Add me to the list. I live in one unit of a duplex, built 7 years ago. Have two of these detectors in the unit. One of them started raising nine kinds of holy hell at 1:30 in the damned morning. I did a quick run of the entire place (not hard, it’s really small) and it became immediately apparent nothing was burning, but the stupid alarm just wouldn’t shutup. Unplugged and de-batteried, and the other smoke alarm is not going off or giving signs of trouble.

    Still, I might let the landlady know that these things are crap.

    1. Administrator

      Really amazing how defective these units appear to be. I wonder what condition exists late at night since most seem to be going off in the middle of the night.

  81. Carolyn

    My 1275’s have gone off for now reason 3 times now in the past 10 years. The most recent was last night after a power outage at around 2:30 a.m. Same story– I ran around the house and outside looking for smoke/fire, and then had to get the ladder out to take down the units. After the first time, I started keeping ear plugs in my bedside table– I was very grateful for them last night.

    I need to replace these alarms, but I’m not sure yet what I’ll get. Any suggestions for alarms that actually work only when there’s actual smoke?

  82. Craig

    Same story and same problem as other posts. 2:00 am. False alarm. Freaked us out. Ridiculous. Going in the morning to replace.

  83. Kate

    Ditto to the above comments. Glad I found this site. False alarm from a Kidde 1235 at 5 a.m. freaked me and the dog out. I had to pull the unit from the ceiling to shut it up.

  84. James Love

    I replaced all of my Kidde detectors due to false alarms, now just 1 year later they are going off a couple times a night AGAIN.

    I think the model is 1235. Is the model number on the little sticker on the back? There is an issue number on the sticker but nothing that says “Model Number”.

    Is there a non-Kidde product which actually works? I will replace them and never use a Kidde product again.

    I thought about what conditions occur at night too. It’s not low air movement, since you’d expect some false alarms during the day and since I know my neighbours they would tell me it was going off.

    Home Depot is also complicit in selling these crappy units.

  85. Will

    Wow, what a list…And I’m adding to it. Replaced all units 6 months ago after ~7 years of intermittent late night heart attacks with these things going off for no apparent reason.

    I replaced them with unit # PE120 from Lowes and here we go again…So the solution is…You guessed it, no fire alarms…Isn’t that just great.

    I’m going out and buying some battery powered ones and leaving them around the house.

    What the !@#$?>????

    1. Administrator

      Will,

      We ended up going with the battery powered ones along with a plug in CO detector. Frustrating.

  86. ughhhh

    Us too, my wife, four-day old baby and myself were blasted awake at 3:45 this morning. A quick scream and nothing. WTF, not like we need sleep anyway with a new one in the house

    1. Administrator

      This is really amazing. The timing on these units really shocks me. Our first incident was in the middle of the night as well. I wonder what conditions cause this. Low light have an impact?

      I bet you slept really well after the alarm, didn’t you? Nothing like thinking that you have something going on in your home to help with the shut-eye.

  87. KIDDE 1235 smoke alarm fast blinking green light? | Best Smoke Detector Alarms

    […] the result in. It does this to alert you of the low battery. What do you believe? Answer under!Query by afan: KIDDE 1235 smoke alarm fast blinking green light? My smoke alarm went off today. I ha… a way to stop it? This is driving me nuts. It goes off at the littlest things! Alarm runs on AC […]

  88. lynn kimmel

    We have the i2060 model and they have gone off around 3am twice this year. Today I checked each of the detectors with incense smoke and NONE of them went off! They all have a green light and new batteries. Has anyone found another company that makes a quality detector you could recommend?

  89. mss

    we had one start chirping at 9 pm last night, changed the battery, then another started chirping, changed that battery….then the first one startedup again and one by one they all started, randomly, chirping. late night trip to drug store….new batteries for all 10 of them, tested each one and……3 of them randomly chirping ALL night, got home from work at 7 today, stil chirping. my son has just removed the 3 that seemed to be doing it and the house is at last chirp free. Can anybody tell me what that is all about? oh, cleaned each one with compressed air last night too.

    1. Administrator

      MSS,

      The chirping is a slightly different issue than most people experience with the Kidde 1275 or 1285’s. Normally, it is simply a false alarm in the middle of the night. It could have been a case where you batteries all went bad at the same time, but that seems highly unlikely.

      If the chirping comes back, I would guess that you have a bad circuit breaker or some bad wiring within the circuit that your smoke detectors are on. They chirp will occur when the unit loses power. It will occur if it is battery power or AC power (hard wired). However, if memory serves me correct, the chirp is quite different if it is AC power. It is more of an extended beep to make it clear that power was lost.

      If the chirping problem is gone, you might have just had 10 of the most incredible batteries ever where they all failed at the same time. Possible, but unlikely. Keep us posted if it continues.

      http://www.WNYHandyman.com

  90. Curt

    I just replaced all my 10 yr old detectors with new Firex units and have had them go off with two loud blasts then quiet for a few min and then two more blasts and then ok for the rest of the night. As these are new and clean and have new batteries i think i may have found out what is causing it. There seems to be a problem with a rapid temperature change on the detectors. Rotating the detector locations i found out the same two locations always were the ones triggering the alarms. On the nights in question the outside temp dropped really fast from 90 to about 62 degrees in about two hours. And yes it always seems to occur at anytime from 1:30 am to as late as 5:30 am. But i am in Florida so your results may vary depending on your current weather. On visual inspection of the mounting locations there was a air draft into and out of the boxes depending on the differences in temp between the house and the outside. The two offending locations were on the ceilings. The other detectors are side wall mounted. I have 8. On discovery of the apparent problem locations I removed the offending locations and wala no more alarms in the wee hours. I am going to take a caulking gun and seal these openings air tight. Then we will see if that is indeed the cause of the false alarms. I only get the false alarms on high differential temperature nights. If it stays all cool or all hot or just holds temp the alarms do not go off. I will repost after i give it a few weeks and some rapid temp change nights to find out if that fixes these false alarms. As these alarms are also wired into my alarm system it also sets off that high decibel horn too and that thing going off i do not need!

    1. Administrator

      Thanks for the feedback Kurt. It seems that seasonal shifts are the time of the most false alarms. Perhaps it is very likely the cause you point out. Late August, early September seems to be the time in the northeast when this occurs. That would make sense with the warm days followed by damp cold nights.

      When you say that you sealed the openings “air tight” with caulk, did you mean the openings where the wires protrude through the ceiling, or part of the detector unit itself?

      Thanks much,

      http://www.WNYHandyman.com

  91. Steve

    Administrator,
    You recommended the Kidde i12040 as a replacement for the 1275 back in April 2007. Do you still recommend the i12040 or is there a later model that should be considered? I have 8 to replace and want an inexpensive route.

    1. Administrator

      Steve,

      That unit is going to be the “easy” route. The i2040 reviews much better than the 1275 and replacement is a snap. You could go another route and snip out your quick connect adapters and change the brand from Kidde. However, there will be a bit of labor involved. There are also adapters that will allow you to use a “click” connector and change to the new brand. However, there is going to be a fairly significant addition to the cost. The i2040 is probably the most straightforward replacement unit, at the lowest price, with the simplest connection.

      Since they are Kidde brand, you probably won’t get the best customer service (according to many), but if you don’t require service then it shouldn’t matter to you.

      Good luck.

      http://www.wnyhandyman.com

  92. M Carr

    We had 10 detectors installed in our new home built in 2004. We have the Kidde 1275. When one alarm starts going off 123 the whole house goes off and it is usually between 1am & 4am. There has never been a chirp with this system. It is very nerve racking compelling me to want to ripe every unit off the ceiling. Anyway, I appreciate all the reviews I’ve since 1:30am. Can’t sleep any more since our 1am house alarm episode. In the morning I am going to look into replacing this model and hope for the best.

    1. Administrator

      M Carr,

      I think that you had the feeling that all of us did when our smoke detectors went off in the middle of the night. I remember how comforting when mine went off and I found that it was simply a bad unit by reading similar stories online. Frustrating but a great relief. Sorry that you are part of the club. Good luck with your replacement units.

      http://www.WNYHandyman.com

  93. M Carr

    Than you for responding.

    @Administrator
    As soon as our local store opened, we went out and bought new Duracell batteries. We took down each unit, vacuum them and installed the new batteries. We tested each one individually and found one to have an unusual chirp. In that case we were considering changing out that one for the new model. But thought that we would have to change them all to the new model. Anyway, with all new batteries and cleaning, there have been no false alarms yet. My local electricians are suggesting to change out the Kidde for a Honeywell system. What do you think? Thank you again for your website and support of homeowners like myself.

  94. Administrator

    The Honeywell system would probably be a much better option than the builders grade Kidde units that cause the trouble. My hunch is that it has more to do with the material, or the quality control of the product than the dust, batteries, or spiders as some companies claim (Yes, I’m talking about you Kidde).

    I am sure that they Honeywell units will come with a price, but that price will probably eliminate the false alarm issues or concerns. The Honeywell smoke detectors appear to be very well reviewed, but the average cost is much higher than other brands. Quality does come with a price.

    Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

  95. jaclemen

    Thank you so much for this thread of posts! My husband and I are lying in bed at 3:30 a.m. unable to go back to sleep for the SECOND TIME this week! The Kidde 1275 was installed in our home during the rebuild after our HOUSE FIRE six years ago. To say the least, we are too familiar with waking in the middle of the night to a smoke alarm and then finding a fire burning half your house.
    I find it most fascinating that everyone’s alarms are falsely sounding in the middle of the night. We have also been experiencing very high temperatures (h95, l75) these last few weeks.
    We pulled the offending unit out of the ceiling, removed the battery, and I hope my heart will slow down enough to allow me to sleep.
    Not sure what we’ll do to replace these!

    1. Administrator

      Jaclemen,

      It is surprising how comforting it is to find that this is just a bad unit and not an actual issue. For you, having been through a house fire, I couldn’t imagine how upsetting it must have been when they went off.

      For your replacement, you can select one of 3 options

      1. Buy new units that are not the same brand and have excellent reviews. Once you have those, you could hire an electrician to wire them in. Should be pretty simple to do. There is an alternative Kidde (higher quality with good reviews). The rewiring should not take an electrician long and if you are familiar with wiring a light, you could do this yourself.
      2. Buy a wiring harness (You can find on Amazon.com) that will connect your current Kidde quick connector to a new brand. The wiring harness you purchase will be based upon the new units you purchase.
      3. Buy a replacement Kidde that doesn’t have the false alarm issue (there is one linked above). This will plug right in to your existing wiring and will be the easiest option of the 3. And the least expensive.

      Good luck with whatever you do.

      http://www.WNYHandyman.com

  96. Rob

    I echo the story. Alarm triggers, whole house ringing in the middle of the night. Two kids under 4 scared witless and screaming! With such noise it’s hard to think straight and resolve what (in retrospect) is often a technical issue. So for anyone in the same situation:

    Might there be any chance of a fire? If so call 911.
    Sure there’s no chance of a fire? Then check methodically. Room by room search (and roof space). Use all senses, including touch first, smell and sight.
    If in any doubt at all call 911.

    Certain of false alarm?
    Apply ear muffs if you have them. Paper towel if you don’t!
    Get step ladder.
    Erect under smoke detector (work down the house).
    Turn device 1/8 turn clockwise.
    Pull down.
    Detach 3 prong electrical connection. It will retain approx 5 seconds of energy / noise.
    Repeat for all detectors.

    Now think clearly. Repeat search for fire. If in doubt call 911.
    Reconnect non faulty detectors and / or replace as soon as possible.

    I’ve been a fire fighter for 6 years and witnessed in close quarters the destruction of many residential structure fires. For me a false or over-sensitive alarm is far better than no alarm.

    Remember all equipment fails eventually, these items are cheap allowing them to be wired in pairs for redundancy. Replace them every 5 years before they fail and save the scare!

  97. Gerhard

    There is no such thing as a perfect protection device. So my question for Mr 3/4 AM is what would you rather have – a smoke/fire detector that sometimes goes off when it shouldn’t or one that does NOT function when it should? Hmmm …

    Yes it is possible that the unit you had/have may be set a wee bit too sensitive but is far more likely that there are atmospheric contaminants, dust or insects that cause these nuisance alarms. My suggestion is that if you have more than one of these units swap one of them that has not alarmed with the one in question.

    If the second “non-suspect” and identical unit alarms in the bad location stop blaming the electronics and start looking for the real problem the detector is trying to warn you about. On the otherhand if the suspect unit now gives false alarms in the alternate location – replace it with a less sensitive one or one that uses a photoelectric sensor instead of the ionization kind.

    There are plenty of verified stories where people disconnect or disable allegedly bad protection devices and then their entire family is found dead from CO poisoning, someone gets roasted in bed or …

    As far as the complaint about scaring the begeemies out of a 3 year old. If that is the case then I must question the parentage involved. The purpose of a fire alarm is to wake the about to be dead and get them to “follow procedure.” So the best thing is to consider events such as you describe as an “unannounced drill.” If your son woke up, felt the door and mustered at the designated “family reunion spot” then you did well.

    If any member of the family -pets included- failed to “do their duty” then maybe its time to schedule a few more rehearsals where you pretend the alarm(s) go off and walk everyone through their steps for various scenarios. Then after everyone responds properly without those 85dbs of noise wait a few days and try it while “weekly testing” one or more of the alarms in your “system.”

    This is nothing different from the training US Navy vets like me did many years ago. It works. We need to teach the “civilians” that safety begins at home and there is no such things as starting too young. While Mom calls 911 by cell phone from a safe location, 7 yr ole Sis runs to the neighbors house to call 911 on a landline and Dad clears the house that 3 yr old can be on the lookout at the mailbox/curb side for a big red fire truck.

  98. Teresa

    OMG! My house was built in 2007. We have been dealing with the same problem on and off and like yours, it always goes off between 2-4 in the morning (except once @ 4 PM). The first time it scared the crap out of me thinking I had left the stove on or something. By the 3rd, 4th time, we just stayed in bed and let it do its thing (2-3 false alarms). We change the batteries EVERY year during the time change. So, we went ahead and changed the new battery again thinking it could be a defected one–wrong!! It went off again last night at 3 AM. My poor Dog doesn’t know where to hide when it goes off….Hubby just went to Home Depot to replace it. Hopefully, it is just the one that is defected….thanks for your post!

  99. Adam

    I cannot even begin to describe how traumatic this experience has been. We moved into a new house in Jan and starting in Feb we were greeted with a 3am wake up call for several straight nights. After changing all the batteries in 15 smoke detectors (twice !) because our contractor told us that was the problem, we soon surmised that we had a rogue alarm somewhere in the house. After several more 3/4 am nights and actually relocating to a hotel one night, we finally found the guilty alarm and smashed the sh-t of out it on the driveway into a million pieces. Of course we thought we were out of the woods as several months had passed. Until TONIGHT ! ! Kids sound asleep and whamo ! Midnight surprise! Another rogue alarm. Everybody is going to need therapy no doubt starting tomorrow. And I’m going HD and buying new models. No way we can survive another midnight raid. This is BS.

    1. Administrator

      Adam,

      It is a feeling that is hard to describe. I have mentioned before that my son slept with his fan on for the next year or so. He was 3 or 4 and felt that it kept them from going off. There is no way that the cause is anything but a defective unit. These things go off in the middle of the night and it generally happens in the summer. Seems like an issue with heat and humidity. Maybe it is just a rapid swing in the heat / humidity.

      WNYHandyman.com

  100. Paul

    Happened to me 4 X over the past year, finally sent a nasty email to Kidde, and they are sending me 7 new units without batting an eye, something tells me they know they have a faulty product, specifically the units distributed via Home Depot.

  101. Sarah

    The same thing happened to me (3:00 AM, almost on the dot), except that the offending alarm was a First Alert SA49198 (wired smoke detector). Three loud beeps woke us up, and we looked around to find nothing. Five min later, it happened again, and then our Kidde 1275, wired on the same circuit, dutifully repeated 3 loud beeps at the end of the hall. (My search for both alarms led me to this article.)

    As I was pulling up info off of the internet, a silverfish ran across my desk, and I smashed it. I suspect it might have come from the offending First Alert unit. So it’s not a spider, but… And then there was another potential problem: As I unplugged the First Alert, the hot wire (black) slipped out of the wire nut — entirely the fault of whoever installed the thing (not me). So it might have been a failing unit, faulty wiring, or literally a bug in the system. I don’t know, and I’m too sleepy to figure it out tonight.

    Fortunately we had made the switch to centralized fire/smoke monitoring a while back, so these systems are redundant. We can sleep confidently tonight with at least those detectors on guard, in case we really do have a fire/smoke problem brewing somewhere. (These were redundant.)

    I’ll mention that we had quite a few First Alert wired alarms in another house, and they all started malfunctioning about the same time. The house had been sitting vacant, and perhaps the alarms didn’t like the swings in temperature or humidity. Anyway, I’m just saying First Alert units give trouble too. Perhaps this is a case of the grass being greener at the other end of the product isle.

    G’nite everyone, and thanks for posting the article and comments. At least I know I’m not the only one, and I feel a bit more confident that my house isn’t about to burn down.

    1. WNY Handyman

      Sarah,

      Happy that this posting might have helped you to sleep a little better. When our Kidde units went a few years back, we were fearful that it was a real issue. Reading other stories certainly helped us to get a little sleep before waking up to replace them.

      The fact that you had a silverfish appear and a faulty wire has to leave you wondering what the true cause is. Personally, I would lean toward the wiring.

      Good Luck.

      WNYHandyman.com

  102. Nest Products for Your Home – WNY Handyman

    […] have referred a lot of folks to replacement units for their faulty Kidde smoke detectors over the past few years.  We ran into an issue with our Kidde 1275 units and were forced to […]

  103. Jeff Miling

    Sarah,
    Its not Your WIRING. We had 12 Dicon smoke detectors interconnected in our house for 18 years not a problem till the end. Brought 12 Kidde and hooked to the same wiring. We had our first false alarm with in a week in the middle of the night. Everyone running around trying to find the fire. Now about 6 months later and about over 20 false trips we only have 3 left hooked up. We called Kidde two months after our first false alarm and and the sent us 5 new ones and told us to use the less sensitive model. So I bought 4 of those. In my book there all junk. They have trained my teenage boys to pull the covers over their heads when they hear the Kidde go off in the middle of the night. I just order 6 First Alerts, I Hope and Pray they are better.
    Jeff

  104. Samantha

    1:49am and all alarms both upstairs & downstairs are going off. First instinct of course was to open doors and check all rooms/garage but after 10 minutes & no signs of fire or smoke suspension aroused. Google, and see nothing but horrible reviews from this Kidde 1275 certainly help ease suspension. Only been in home for about 5 months & this is the first time, my fiancé has took them down & is certain it’s a battery issue because they’ve been chirping for some time. I noticed a lot of people mention photoelectric alarms so I’m going to give those a try.

  105. Joe Jennings

    Beware, we have had issues with the Kiddie i12040A which is the replacement, same as everyone. Same damn response from Kiddie that it is spiders, dust, unicorns or whatever. Random 5 second short burst of all the alarms going off ( we have 7). Only occurs between Midnight and 7am of course. Kiddie suggested replacing them so we ordered them from Home Depot in a 6 pack and then got one more. Hired a legit electrician to install the new connectors as Kiddie said that maybe the issue, had everything checked and every connection checked. All new units so that garbage about blowing or vacuuming them out is not applicable and………………..the first damn night they go off at 1:45 in the morning. Brand new units right out of the box……..I cannot take it anymore. If you want to lose 15 nights of sleep a year with screaming fire alarms in the middle of the night waking everyone up, buy these, if not…..buy anything other than a Kiddie or Firex as they are the same company…………do not buy these, they suck, they have not fixed the issue, we just bought these in May of 2016 and the issue still occurs, avoid this like the plague

  106. Tony

    I am amazed at the number of people having this problem. I too have the Kiddie 1275. Ours just went off at 6:30 in the evening. First time that has happened. Usually it is in the middle of the night. I took the detector down and brought it to my computer to do some searching. As I was holding it, a spider was crawling on the unit. I’ve always suspected that a spider might be the culperate of these false alarms and I guess I got the proof of that. I did a search for when spiders are most active and it depends on the spider. But most spiders are nocturnal.
    I too agree that these units are junk. I’m replacing them this week.

    1. WNY Handyman

      Wow. Proof of the spider theory. Either way, I am not sure how Kidde has avoided replacing this model with proper functioning units. They must be dirt cheap to produce and the builders will keep buying them in bunches.

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