Carbon monoxide alarm going off?

Tic-Tac

During the day I always keep two windows open and usually the front door (I have house cats, they like to look/smell/head the outside). I'm a housewife, so I'm home pretty much 24/7 too.

Earlier this morning I was washing dishes when I kept hearing a beeping. The beeps were varied between 15 secs to 1min and sometimes came as just one or a group of about 3 beeps.
I looked for the source and found the (plug-in) kiddie carbon monoxide detector was the source of the noise. Since its a plug in, I know its not a battery issue, a small light saying to move to fresh air would flash on for maybe a second, then turn right back off.

Its never done this before and I'm a little bothered by it. Could it just have been a fluke? Maybe the alarm is old or something? (The alarm has been here since before we moved in)

It just seems weird that it would only flash on for a second. And the moment I moved the bookshelf (that's about 2ft from it) it just stopped altogether.
I was hand washing the dishes too...no appliances were on. We do have a gas oven/stove, but it hasn't been turned on since I made dinner last night.

Answer
If your detector has a battery, the battery may need to be changed. Our electric smoke detectors have backup batteries that need to be changed about every 18 months. It's also possible that the detector is old. You could also stop by your local fire station and ask the firefighters if they have any ideas. When we had a smoke detector that wouldn't stop beeping in the middle of the night (never during the day!), I asked our local firefighters and learned that smoke detectors only last for about 10 years. I don't know about carbon monoxide detectors.

Why is my carbon monoxide detector chirping?

John

Started Monday night at around 4am. Not an 'alarm,' but just a chirp as though the batteries were low. I hit the reset button and it stopped immediately. Same thing happened Tuesday night. Hit reset, stopped doing it.

Yesterday it started chirping in the middle of the afternoon, so I installed a new 9v battery, thinking that it must be low. Apparently that wasn't the problem, though, because it started chirping again this morning.

Does anyone have any ideas?
*edit: I replaced the battery yesterday with a new one, assuming the battery was the problem and that it would fix it.

Answer
Hi John, Iâm Ken with The Home Depot and have had this question before. Since you have replaced the old battery with a new one and that is not problem, your unit is probably ready to be replaced.

Some manufactures say to replace your alarm every 5 to 7 years. This is to benefit from new technology.

So I would check the age of your alarm and if it is within this time frame I would consider getting a new one. Having a proper working carbon monoxide alarm is very important. Hope this helps.

http://community.homedepot.com/t5/Parts-Care-Repair/Carbon-Monoxide-Safety/m-p/9879/highlight/true#M66

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