Smoke Alarm Saga

Almost exactly six years ago — in September of 2019 — I began having electrical problems. Power outages affected half the lights and plugs in the place. Getting an electrician in to fix it led to what became my worst experience with home service — a six-year saga with a disappointing ending.

More precisely, five-and-a-half years. The unsatisfying conclusion came last May with a faint echo in June. Some fallout persists, a task left unfinished, but the stress is thankfully past.

Here’s what happened…

The electrical problem back in 2021 turned out to be the main 100-amp circuit breaker that sits outside just after the power meter. “Just after”, meaning it’s customer equipment and my responsibility. Cost me a pretty penny to get fixed.

The reason it cost so much was the electrician I hired talked me into replacing my (admittedly ancient) smoke alarms and installing a CO detector (probably a good idea). He also talked me into some other work. Which I don’t regret. [See Whadda Week! for details.]

The smoke alarms were supposedly good for ten years, but began giving me problems five years later, in August of 2024. Assuming they were still under warranty, I called the same company back.

Only they now said the smoke alarms they installed weren’t that great and five years was about right and, sorry, you’re beyond the warranty period. We’ll be happy to install new ones for you (if you pay us).

They had me over a barrel, so I paid them to once again replace my smoke alarms. [See Screaming Ceiling Cats and the follow-up in Friday Notes (Aug 30, 2024) for details.]

The company I hired both times, an outfit called Service Today, got off on the wrong foot with me from the beginning because of their aggressiveness. Looking back on it, the upselling the first guy did was surely part of that aggressiveness — I ended up with a $2800 bill.

I wrote briefly in 2021 about an aggressive email they sent me. I was very much put off by that [see World of Lies — look for the big red warning]. I wouldn’t have called them back except for thinking the smoke alarms should be under warranty. Or even if not, that given the advertised ten-year life, they’d honor that and at least give me a discount (nope).

The second guy this past August also tried to upsell me on work they could do besides replacing the smoke alarms. He did an electrical inspection and — of course — found things he said needed addressing. Yet completely missed the CO detector his own company installed five years ago (minus one month).

Completely missed that it had a five-year life (per the manufacturer). The next month — in fact almost exactly five years from its install date — it began beeping at me, begging for death. [See Friday Notes (Sep 27, 2024) for details].

The above is background for the final chapter of the saga (though an epilogue remains to be written). In summary, the story so far:

September 2019: Four new smoke alarms. Supposedly good for ten years (they have a “10-year sealed battery”). I’m not thrilled with “Service Today”, but it’s just a vague feeling at this point.

August 2024: Four new smoke alarms (by Kidde). These have labels with an install date and replace by date: 08-34. And the user manual that comes with them advertises the ten-year battery on the cover. I’m downright unhappy with “Service Today” at this point.

March 28, 2025: The unit in the bedroom starts error-beeping. Not a false alarm but three short, sharp beeps every sixty seconds. User manual says this means a “Smoke Sensor Fault”. A tinny voice from the unit says faintly, “Smoke Sensor Error”. Pressing the only pressable button — triggering a loud alarm self-test — provides from two minutes to two days (or more) of peace before starting up again.

I might have called “Service Today” right away, though it would have only made the surprise ending — that they were out of business, probably for just cause — happen sooner.

Instead, I lived with it, triggering the loud self-test every time it went into its error-beeping. Aggravating, but I dislike that company so much and don’t want them back in my home. Beyond that, I had some trepidation that — despite clearly being under warranty — they might find fault with me. The first time the smoke alarms went bad, it started with the one in the bedroom. (Actual false alarms — very loud — got your pulse pounding.)

I have a box fan on top of my armoire. That fan is almost always on. In the A/C and furnace months, it provides air movement when the windows are closed. In the other months, I just leave it running, because why not. My concern was that perhaps the fan was blowing dust into the smoke alarm in the bedroom.

I tried using compressed air to blow out the unit (as suggested by the manual). Didn’t make any difference. How irksome to have problems with a unit installed just seven months ago.

I finally used the switch on the back to discharge it, which is supposed to kill it. But it wouldn’t die. Kept on beeping. I finally got so frustrated, I banged it on a hard chair arm until (I thought) I broke something inside, and it finally shut up. For about a month or so. It has been “disabled” and “discharged” for over three months now, and it still keeps on beeping.

April 29, 2025: The unit in the hallway started doing the same thing. Three short error beeps. This can’t be the fault of the fan in the bedroom, so now I’m wondering what’s going on here. I still really don’t want to call that damn company, though.

Removing it from the ceiling seemed to make it happier. After several days, I put it back up, and it errored within six hours. Took it down, and it was okay again. I wondered if being upside down mattered, but I left it face down (as it would be on the ceiling), and it didn’t error, so who knows. Here in July, it still intermittently complains about a Smoke Sensor Error.

May 11, 2025: The unit in the living room joins the fun. That one is up on a 13-foot ceiling my ladder doesn’t come near reaching. I have a long pole that came with the place — was for opening the skylight (the skylight recently installed doesn’t open, but the pole is handy for dealing with wasps that sometimes decide to hang out in the skylight well). I used that pole to press the button to start the loud self-test and reset the beeping for an unknown period of time (over and over again).

I asked around. A friend said he had a 12-foot ladder that extends to 20 feet. Perfect. He brought it by, and I climbed up and got the offending unit. Didn’t even need to extend the ladder, 12 feet was enough.

So, three of the four new smoke alarms lost their minds. For a while, I tracked the intervals between their error-beeping thing, but there was no pattern I could see. It’s possible ambient air pressure factors in somehow.

Taking them down gave me some peace, because all four are wired together, so a self-test of one makes all four go off — four times the loudness. (In an earlier post, I said they were synchronized via Bluetooth, but that’s not correct. It’s the home wiring that links them. Three wires go to each unit. Two are power, one is the signal line that synchronizes them.

Having taken the bad ones down, I buried them under a pile of bath towels in my hallway closet. That way I didn’t have to hear them. The next time I go to the county recycle center I’ll take them for disposal (along with that CO detector that expired last September).

One of the three seems to have settled down — hasn’t beeped in weeks — but the other two still do it (under the towels out of earshot — I check on them occasionally). They do this despite supposedly being “disabled” and “discharged”.

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By May I knew I had no choice but to call “Service Today”. With three of the four gone bad, I was pretty sure they couldn’t dodge honoring the warranty this time. And yet, they did.

I knew something was up the moment my call was answered by a call system that identified itself with a different name than “Service Today”. When a human came on the line, I found out that “Service Today” had gone out of business, and this other company had “inherited” their phone number.

But not their business — explicitly not any warranty work.

Chatting with the gal, who was clearly being careful about what she said, I got the impression “Service Today” deserved to go out of business and that I was not the only former customer stuck with bad work. She even suggested I contact the Better Business Bureau and submit a complaint. Or possibly a lawyer if I wanted to try suing someone (no thanks — I’d spend more on a lawyer than I would ever recover).

A little poking around on the internet turned up that “Service Today” went out of business in November 2024 (so had I called in March, it would still have been too late). The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry revoked their licenses on February 25, 2025, and prohibited them from doing business in this state. That doesn’t sound like a company that simply went out of business.

I did contact the BBB, and they accepted my complaint (which both surprised me a bit but also gave me faint hope). When they got back to me a month later, though, they said, sorry, the place is out of business, so you’re out of luck.

One of the four alarms — the one that was in my office — never had a problem. I moved that one to the hallway to be more central, because it’s the only smoke alarm I have at the moment.

The last time I was in Home Depot (and it may be the last time, but that’s another story), I saw a whole shelf stacked with Kidde smoke alarms, and it’s apparently not necessarily a bad brand. If I could find the same model, I could install more myself (assuming they’re plug-compatible).

It does make me wonder about that surge suppressor they sold me in 2019. Is it any good or just junk? The CO monitor was a five-year thing, so no fault there (though they might have said something, and the second electrician should have picked up on it). No problems with the 100-amp breaker they replaced, either.

But it’s funny how from the beginning I had a sense they weren’t a good company. I’ve learned to trust that instinct, and I should have acted on it back in 2019. I almost told the gal who called no thanks. Now I wish I had.

I’ve had luck with great plumbers and other service companies. Dryer repair and washing machine repair, excellent service. But “Service Today” was a whole other thing — easily the worst service experience I’ve had. Considering it only cost me money and some frustration, I suppose I haven’t done that badly. I’ve heard some real horror stories with lasting consequences.

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I planned to tell a related story that goes with this saga, but in the interests of keeping this under 2,000 words, I’ll leave that for next time.

Stay electrical, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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