A strange man knocked on my door late last night. Rein in your enthusiasm, it's not THAT kind of story. Apparently some smoke alarms have been going off randomly in the building and he was checking all of them. He was kind enough not to comment on my pj's or the faint smell of tan in a can as he came in. Always interested in these handyman jobs (not interested enough to actually do them myself, of course) I stayed around to see what he was actually doing.
He duly climbed up his little ladder and unscrewed the alarm. After staring intently at it for a few moments he unleashed his killer electrical skills, honed after years of training........and BLEW ON IT. Yes, that was the extent of his knowledge. I watched to see if there was anything else he had up his sleeve, but nope, that was it. He pronounced the alarm 'ok', packed up his ladder and left. I have to say, I'm not completely confident in his verdict - but who am I to argue?!
1 comment:
Hi KH,
I'm not an expert, but I'm remotely familiar with fire-alarm since it's part of the trade.
Fire detectors are two type: smoke and heat detectors. The latter type is used rarely.
Smoke detectors are of varied technologies. Optical detection is one of them. This involves a beam of light running straight inside the small detector from point A to point B. When smoke enters the detector it deflects the beam and subsequently it goes off.
Air particles like dust and whatnot CAN sometimes interfere with this light beam. I think the technician was making sure the beam was undisturbed by blowing on it :)
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