yeah, I'm pretty much going to look up the difference between 8 and 9 volts right after I post this

[theropicus]

....so, that was weird. One of the smoke alarms was beeping like it had a low battery, so I had to go searching for a stool and/or tall enough to allow me to safely reach it (was right at the top of the stairs, and since upstairs is the computer/family room, of course we only have chairs with wheels up there [and a very rickety stool that is not so

Comments

[yoshikochan]

One of the alarms may be a carbon monoxide detector. There are a lot of new safety laws requiring them that might have kicked in during the new construction, so the contractor shoved them all in there to meet the inspection requirements, or something like that.

[theropicus]

Yeah, that was my first thought when I heard the beeping (because I'd closed the door to that part of the house since everyone else was gone and I saw no point in heating rooms I wasn't using), but the carbon monoxide detector for our house is a rectangular, boxish contraption and this was round. According to the APUs, it's a smoke alarm that goes through batteries like nobody's business. Their decision (after it failed to like any of the other 9 volts they dug up) was that it was finally time to replace it, since it has given them nothing but trouble over the years. :D

As for regulations, yeah. That's apparently why there's one in the APUs' bedroom, though I fail to see why there needs to be one in the hallway right outside their door, and then one right up the stairs from there. Still, the law requiring carbon monoxide detectors is a relatively recent one if I remember correctly, and this part of the house, though newer than the rest, was built 20 years ago, so. Not exactly recent.