smoke detectors

So my new to me house only has 2 cheap (9v battery) smoke detectors.

I'm wanting to buy detectors for every room in the house that are connected together so if one goes off they all do. Also would like it to be able to connect to my girder server or something else that can trigger an event to send email/text/call if it does go off.

Any suggestions?

justinm001 said:

So my new to me house only has 2 cheap (9v battery) smoke detectors.

I'm wanting to buy detectors for every room in the house that are connected together so if one goes off they all do. Also would like it to be able to connect to my girder server or something else that can trigger an event to send email/text/call if it does go off.

Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

Most conventional interconnected detectors that I know of require wires, which I doubt you have in your house, so you will need to pull new wires (not a trivial task) or investigate a wireless solution.

I don't know much about wireless, but you do have some options:

Check out the onelink system from First Alert.
Kidde has a wireless solution also.

Good luck

I'm planning on running new wires. I have an attic above and basement below so it shouldn't be too bad. I found some that are interconnecting which is good but I'd really like to have it connect to girder or something else to send me text/email/phone messages incase they go off.

Isn't Girder meant to be used with a hardware "security panel"? In other words, can Girder alone detect and handle fire alarms? What about fire zone trouble? Will you use EOL supervision? What about a reverser relay to sound the non-triggered detectors? How will you guarantee fire zone power in power-loss situations?

Your intentions are good and you don't want to trifle with this critical life-safety function. You should maintain the highest standards throughout your upgrade.

Anyway you might want to read-up on wired smoke detectors, such as the extensive documentation available at System Sensor (or another fine vendor.)
http://www.systemsensor.com/html/sup.html

Kiddie also offers a relay module that according to the manufacturer can be used to activate external devices. I would assume that this could be hooked up to any system that can sense a contact closure but I have not experience with this module. Here is the link: http://www.kiddeus.com/utcfs/Templates/Pag...d%3D384,00.html
It's a little hard to find because it is under the commercial products and not consumer products.

justinm001 said:

So my new to me house only has 2 cheap (9v battery) smoke detectors.

I'm wanting to buy detectors for every room in the house that are connected together so if one goes off they all do. Also would like it to be able to connect to my girder server or something else that can trigger an event to send email/text/call if it does go off.

Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

This is the point where those that know me would expect me to chime in and say never connect 120V smokes to any other monitor type device, but your not connecting these smokes up to a monitored panel which would be wrong, but you're just alerting you via an e-mail. There shouldn't be anything wrong with that, just, as others have already said, DON'T connect to the smokes in any way except the relay designed for them.

Of course the next question is, your on vacation and you get your warning e-mail, then what? You really can't call the fire department so you call your neighbor who happens to be gone at the time/ Then what? My point is, just don't get too much of a false sense of security with this. If you want to do it correctly, get a monitored panel with its own smokes, but short of that, your solution probably can't hurt.

If you're going through the trouble of running all new wire, then spend the additional money and get a panel designed to monitor smokes. As a side benefit, it can be used for security and automation.

HAI or ELK?