Hi All.
I am doing some renos before the new little one arrives. I am pulling up the old carpet and 1/4″subfloor and the smoke detector keeps going off! I finally unhooked it. Any ideas for what might be causing it. There is remnants of old lino under the carpet. Maybe old glue fumes of something? My wife is worried and pregnant…..not a good mix.
Thanks
Replies
muskegman
If you're cutting up the underlayment, smoke and fumes from that could do it. Dust of course will set it off too. Sometimes pounding will make this happen-usually in the room below.
Never experienced a smoke alarm going off from exposing lino to the air and this is from close to 40 yrs of demo.
There are two types of smoke detectors, ionization and photoelectric.
The ionization type tend to have false alarms with anything that creates a strong chemical odor. If you're using a heat gun to soften carpet adhesive, eg, then that could do it, or if you're using any sort of solvent to soften the glue.
The photoelectric type is less likely to produce false alarms, but can alarm from fine dust.
Either one can be set off when cutting wood if you manage to scorch the wood with your saw blade.
It's unlikely that asbestos dust could be a factor (though you should, of course, take reasonable asbestos precautions when pulling old linoleum).
Keep in mind that smoke alarms should be replaced every ten years, and it's also wise to replace them AFTER any significant remodeling that may have raised a lot of dust.
It would probably be wise for your wife to vacate the premises (or move to an unaffected room with good ventilation) while you're actively doing the demo, if only because the odors could unsettle her stomach.
While renovating our house we found that the subfloor had been used as concrete forms on the foundation. The plywood was still covered with form release and still had an odor. Two coats of BIN shellac seems to have sealed it. I also taped all the seams.
Could be something like that in your house and you simply don't recognize it.
Ours is an owner builder house. Anything done by a contractor, especially a developer, probably won't have former concrete forms as a subfloor. Still, there could be any sort of old glue. I'd invest in some BIN.
Thanks for the info! We had big box fans running in opposite windows upstairs and it's much better in there tonight. Whatever it was, it was more a really strong chemical odor than dust but it's good to know that both can set off an alarm. We'll be sure to change them out when the demolitioning is done too. Thanks again!