Just a PSA: Smoke detectors absolutely MUST be replaced after 10 years.
this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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Given your update: I had the same thing happen. Apparently, buying a 30 pack of 9V batteries ten years ago because "I'll need them eventually" was not a great idea. Because you just end up with 26 batteries that have 2% of their juice left.
I didn't waste any, though. Used all of them up. Just had to change a lot of smoke alarm batteries for a while.
ᵇᵉᵉᵖ
I’m impressed there was a ladder involved. I usually try to do it on my tippy toes before giving up and grabbing the nearest thing that looks like it might hold my weight. The ladders are all the way out in the garage after all
This is why I tell everyone not to cheap out on coffee tables
Not so dull but overturned milk crates get rickety around 250 pounds of weight on top, ask me how I know.
How do you know?
A certain nameless fat guy stepped up onto a milk crate at work and proceeded to crash through it cutting his legs up to the shins.
Sounds like a time a lot of expletives find their way out of certain nameless guy's mouth. Poor guy.
It's always the nearest chair for me if I can't reach, but to be honest the only one I couldn't reach I didn't put back up. It was on the wall separating the kitchen, so I kind of just set it on a table at the end of the wall, it not being on the wall at height is probably a negative, but I figured if it is closer to where the smoke has to wrap around the wall, it balances out.
I've tested it by making smash burgers... Still sets the damn thing off every time.
Also make me stop making smash burgers, because I was tired of moving the smoke detector outside, which my spouse seems to think is not the proper way to deal with to much smoke in the kitchen
Beeep
Not anymore hopefully
........Beeep
Do they even have batteries anymore, I thought you were supposed to replace them after 10 years and they all have built in batteries now
Depends on how dusty the room is. Every time a bit of dust gets in there, it has to power up and check whether it reaches the threshold. All that powering up can drop a supposedly 10 year battery down to just a couple of years in a dusty environment
One of mine just started beeping and I can't help but think it is your fault for bringing them up.
Now to figure out which one it is, because high pitched beeping every three minutes makes that sooooo easy.
Conservation of energy means that if one person replaces a battery, another battery somewhere else must lose charge. Pretty sure that's how it works, no I am not looking for additional sources thankyou.
Pretty sure that’s how it works, no I am not looking for additional sources thankyou.
Most self aware social media post of 2026
Shit, I just did one of mine a couple weeks ago, and I told myself I was gonna get a package of 9 volts on the next grocery run and go through the house and do the rest of them. And I definitely did not follow through on that. So thanks for the reminder.
Wired ones are great. They even talk to each other on different floors.
Good on ya, a friend of mine was recently badly burned in their bed because their smoke alarm didn't go off.
Do you know what caused the fire? I'm guessing they were sleeping.
Sick, dude!
Replaced it with what? Folgers crystals?
I hope you tested the battery after installing it, wouldn’t want to make this post too risqué.
…and it’s now too late for that