I didn't know about replacing smoke alarms every decade until very recently. The units in my home were two decades old, hardwired AC with no battery backup. They tested fine but after twenty years it is certainly time to replace them by any standard. There are three in my home, one on each floor.
After doing a bit of research and being a smart consumer, I decided the PI2010 was the best choice out there. I purchased them up at a local big box home center because the price was highly competitive with Amazon and I didn't have to wait for shipping (even free super saver shipping).
In the box was a mounting bracket, three-wire harness, instructions, screws, and the smoke alarm.
Installation was a breeze - shut off the power at the circuit breaker first, removed the old alarms and harnesses next. The instructions with the PI2010 made it clear to not pull out the battery shipping tab until the units all had AC power applied. The mounting bracket was able to use the existing screws so I didn't have to even remove them from the ceiling box. The harness wired up easily and after plugging it into the alarm it only took a small twist to secure it to the mounting mounting bracket. After turning the power back on, I pulled the battery tabs out of each alarm. I tested each one, and had a friend make sure the units on the other floors sounded also.
The alarms in this model are about twice as loud as my old smoke alarms, almost ear splitting loud so I believe there's no chance to sleep through it. A green LED tells you it has AC power and there is a red LED that flashes every so often to say it's working. I may find the 'hush' feature useful for my occasional kitchen disaster, but fanning a cookie sheet is my usual move when I burn something too crispy.
The fact that the battery compartment is on the backside does not detract from the alarm. just a simple quarter twist and the unit comes off the bracket. On that note, it does have an anti-tamper feature that if you choose to activate, removing it from the bracket requires a read through the instructions and a lot more effort.
All in all, it was a breeze to install, it looks and feels professional, it is the loudest alarm I've ever heard, and the hush feature is great.
I plan on extending the wiring and installing these in each of the bedrooms, above and beyond minimum code. Kidde PI2010 Smoke Alarm Dual Sensor with Battery Backup, White
Just bought a house and the smoke detector was over 20 years old. After looking at the various smoke detectors on the web, realized that I needed a dual alarm with both photoelectric and ionization sensors for best coverage. Most of the cheaper alarms are only ionization. This unit met my needs perfectly...
Dual sensor
Hard Wired (previous detector was hard wired)
Battery Backup
Hush button (for false alarms)
Got the alarm a few days before the estimated arrival date. Pulled the pieces out of the box (instructions, bracket, unit, and wiring harness), did a quick look through the instructions and went to work. It really only took me about fifteen minutes to install...most of that time taking the old units bracket down and putting up the new one. The wiring harness has three wires...black, white and red...but the red one has a plastic cover over the end in case you don't need to wire multiple alarms together.
After attaching the needed wires to the house electric with wirenuts and electrical tape, just attach the bracket to the wall, make the sure the included battery is isntalled in the unit, plug the wiring harness into the back of the unit and attach to bracket. Piece o' cake.
If your home already has a certain wiring harness, and you don't want to mess with electrical, I believe there are adaptors available for the back of this unit as well that can accept other shaped harnesses. Very convenient, if you need them. For me, it was pretty simple to cut the power and hook it up myself.
The battery replacement is not nearly as bad as others have described. Just twist the unit off from the mounting bracket, pull off the wired plug, and flip open the battery case. I was also happy to learn that if your house has the red wire, all the smoke alarms are interconnected. That is, if one smoke alarm detects smoke, all the alarms in the house will signal an alert. HOWEVER, all the smoke alarms must be the same! That is, when I initially installed my first PI2010, it kept beeping 3 times every few seconds. I later found it's because I hadn't disconnected my old smoke alarm in the second area. Once I installed both PI2010s in my house, everything worked fine.
I purchased 7 of this item because the smoke alarms in my home needed to be replaced (> 10 years old). This item is a replacement of the highly rated (Consumer Reports) Kidde model PI2000.
I can't rate the performance of this smoke alarm yet, but I wanted to warn other prospective buyers about what I consider a poorly placed battery compartment. The battery compartment for this item is located on the underside of the unit. To replace the battery, you have to unscrew the unit from the base plate.
I was considering returning my order, but read in the owner's manual that the unit will operate using 9-volt lithium batteries for backup. I did a little research on 9-volt lithium batteries and they supposedly will last longer than 9-volt alkaline batteries. I purchased 9-volt lithium batteries today and hopefully they will last at least 5 years. If not, replacing the batteries in these smoke alarms will become a pain.
I have 7 detectors in my home, the units provided by the builder 7 years were junk and malfucntioned at 2 years, numerous false alarms at 3:00AM (not Kidde). I realized i had disconected all but one of the crappy builder supplied units. A few months ago i installed 7 new units from Kidde. I used 5 dual sensor units, 1 with dual smoke and Carbon Monoxide, and one single unit photo electric on the main level close to the kitchen, some say the photo electric is better if it's closer to a kitchen range/stove. After 6 months, not one false alarm, they look nice, they are interconnected. I emailed Kidde prior to purchase to verify that these 3 units can be used together and are compatible when interconnected. I highly recommend Kidde, the dual sensor unit is a little pricey but worth it. - Smoke Detectors - Battery Backup - Smoke Alarm - Smokedetector'
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