How to silence a smoke detector

When your smoke detector starts chirping at you it wants to tell you to replace the empty 9 Volt block battery with a fresh one. Because this chirping becomes very annoying and more frequent the longer you wait you should act soon and put a new battery in place. To replace the empty pile you need a ladder or other means to reach the detector. Some allow to unscrew the top of the body with the hand, for others you might need a screwdriver to insert into a gap near the latch then pull the screwdriver and the top pops off. Remove the old battery and replace it with a fresh one. Assemble the body again.

Connected or not connected to the grid, that is the question

With a new power source detectors now connected to the grid shall run at least six month, so you should replace it twice a year. As a reminder many people use the dates we go from standard time to daylight savings and back. Items connected to the grid also use a pile as backup in case a fire knocked out electricity. These piles hold up to five years.

Temporarily silencing a chirping smoke detector

If you don't have a 9 Volt block cell handy or cannot reach the detector chirping can make you mad. But many smoke detectors ran into allow to silence them temporary for up to ten hours. Locate the small button facing downwards. You need some item to reach it. A long soup ladle might do the job. Press the button for about a half second. It will beep like when it had detected smoke then be silent. Have a look at that button which now should slowly flash all few seconds. Then you are good for eight to ten hours of tranquility and can finally have a good night sleep without the annoying noises. But sometimes it starts becoming noisy again after a few minutes. So wait say 30 minutes before you actually can be sure it will be silent. If not push the button for another half second again. But keep in mind this helps only temporarily. Go ahead and install a new pile instead. That way you mute the alarm device and can go back to your normal life.

[Update]

I noticed the button must lit when releasing and to push it twice that it works reliably.

A firefighter was checking the heat detector. I asked him to check the smoke detector only to find out it is connected to the grid without a battery. He recommended to replace it because it chirps as it is too old and needs to be replaced. Will ask my landlord to replace it.

Plug-in Hybrid

A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, short PHEV, is a car which uses an electric motor lie a purely electric car plus some other motor, usually a combustion engine. It can recharge, like a pure electric car, from grid power. But also by the other engine or even convert some of the energy won by decelerating.

As noted in the article about electric cars you might will a worse turnover when living in an area where the electricity is created by the use of fossil fuels. But since plug-in hybrids also uses the combustion engine to recharge, you are still "greener" than with a car running on pure electric, if the efficiency of the electric car is worse than a car running on gas, and the electricity for recharging the electric car is mainly made from fossil fuels. Might help to not let the climate change become as worse as predicted without cutting carbon emissions.

Electric cars and climate change

Many hail electric cars to be "green". Slow down climate change by induced global warming. Save the planet by reducing carbon emissions and its footprint, and thus the greenhouse effect. But this would be too easy. It's an equation, and all depends on the variables to fill in.

To be "green" the electricity has to be from renewable sources, such as solar, wind. Also hydro-electric should count, as its turbines spin when ever water flows. May be even nuclear, as it does not produce carbon emissions. But it has other disadvantages. How to do dispose spent fuel? Or disasters like in Chernobyl and Fukushima.

So it mainly depends on where you charge your electric car. What are the means used there to produce electricity. If using fossil fuels by a coal fired plant, oil, natural gas or petroleum, or bio fuels like heavily used in Brazil, this isn't really "green". It might be "greener" though if the electric car has a higher mileage than a car with combustion engines using the same energy (efficiency).

Also take take into account is the manufacturing. As of 2017 the manufacturing of an electric car emits more carbon emissions than of a conventional car.

I say we are on the right way. But as mentioned it highly depends how the electricity is created where an owner of an electric car plugs it into the grid. If it is from (mainly) hydro, wind or other renewable, also nuclear, energies where you plug it into the grid, you do something positive at the end. If your grid's electricity derives from fossil fuels you probably not. Taking here in account the costs of an electric car you might be better of with a conventional with a low fuel consumption. At least until your grid feeds from renewables.

Technologies have to improve too, and they will. Emitting less carbon on the manufacturing. Building better batteries giving electric cars a longer range. And of course the sources of which the electricity is produced has to more and more come from renewable forms.