The way that the vast majority of smoke alarms alert us to the fire hazard is through an audible tone transmitted when the fire has been detected. Traditionally, the only sound that you would hear from the smoke alarm would be the warning tone; either when there was a fire or when you checked to see that the alarm was still working (something the fire department recommend is done every couple of years). However, there are now a range of smoke alarm beeps and it is important to know what they are trying to tell you.

Obviously, there is the tone that alerts you to the threat of a fire. This warning tone is very often a high pitched, long tone. The reason it is like this is because the high pitched tone is audible throughout the house and is, quite honestly, very annoying. It wakes you easily and can’t be ignored meaning that you are aware of the fire straight away and can act as soon as possible.

Another tone that can be heard if you have a battery powered smoke alarm is a repetitive beeping sound. Modern day smoke alarms are able to detect all sorts of thing and have been developed over time to ensure that they become safer. In order to prevent the all too common occurrence of a smoke alarm no longer working because the batteries have run out, they are now fitted with a device that is able to detect whether the battery has a certain amount of power remaining. Once this power drops below a certain level, the alarm emits a repeating beep to alert you to the fact that you need to change the batteries.

The final type of smoke alarm beep can be found in some of the more modern smoke detectors. As well as emitting Carbon Dioxide, a fire also emits Carbon Monoxide which was not detected as much by many of the older detectors. Carbon Monoxide is as much, if not more of a killer as Carbon Dioxide and a recent government initiative has resulted in Monoxide detectors being placed inside smoke alarms. Whilst high levels of the gas will result in the fire alarm being sounded (due to the high levels of the gas emitted during a fire), lower levels, which can often prove fatal, provoke a rattling sound. This sound is produced when Monoxide levels are above average so that you can get the problem fixed before it turns fatal.