Can a vacuum dust activate the smoke Alarm in the high rise building that we live in?

Question

We had a false alarm yesterday in our building and from what the firefighters found out. It was from the vacuum dust that someone dropped into our bin-chute and for some reason it activated the smoke alarm inside the bin-chute room. Could it really happened in any home as well?

Answer 1

your fire department was right on the money it tiem the sensor in your smoke detecter can see the build up uf dust as a false reading the should be clean just like anything else also it may not work when needed for the same reason it should be cleaned this can be done with canned air or the should just replace it i would rather see replacement after 5 or six years on the battery only models . take care Mr. Hardware

Answer 2

NO

Answer 3

The detector only care about particles and the volume of particles they sense. Once the particle count is high enough you will have an alarm. Does not matter if it is dust, or smoke.

Answer 4

Yes, It happened to me too- not really sure why either.

Answer 5

yes its possible,

Answer 6

yes - there's a little radiation source in there - when particles, (smoke or dust), get between the source of radiation and the radiation detector, the alarm goes off.

Answer 7

yes, dust explosions in factories are well known

Answer 8

Photo electric cells in the detector are sensitive.

Fire alarms needs cleaning too.

Answer 9

Yes. Most smoke alarms use a photo electric cell in them and when smoke and even heavy dust enters the area of the photo cell it breaks the beam inside and trips the alarm. In newer high rises the smoke alarms are accompanied by heat detectors that help to squelch false alarms caused by dust.

Answer 10

It depends on the type and sensitivity of your smoke detector as well as the amount of dust, but under the correct set of circumstances it can happen. Remember to follow the directions that came with the smoke detector and to change the battery every 6 months.

Answer 11

It probably depends on how much dust was dropped into the chute. I don't think the average amount of dust could start the alarm.

Answer 12

Try cleaning your hoover out or polishing your apartment more so you don't have so much dust.............

Answer 13

Yes, there are two types of fire alarms one that detects heat and the other that detects smoke.  Smoke detectors consist of a light source and a light sensor.  As smoke fills the sensing chamber some of the light  from the source no longer reaches the sensor.  Once enough of the light is blocked from the sensor the alarm is activated.  The event in your building is quite possible, anything that prevent the light sensor from seeing the light source will activate the alarm including dust.

Answer 14

Yes it is due to the size of the dust particles this happens with the cheap ones more often than the better constructed ones and then too it sounds like poor maintenance they do require cleaning periodically