[zbitner]

Hard wired CO detector alert because of bad electric?
I own a three flat and live in one unit. Over the past week I have woken to a few beeps from our hard wired ceiling Nighthawk carbon monoxide detector. It has happened two or three times, but only for one or two chirps and then it's off and green light. The three times it has happened at the same time of night around 4am. I woke again today at 4am with a more severe about of chips and the ceiling light that is on the same breaker was flickering like mad. I guess my big question is this even a carbon issue or is it most likely wiring? Has anyone heard of this happening before. By tenant downstairs (who's breaker box is wired for all the monoxide detectors) just told me he has been losing power once a day for the past three weeks. We had the panels replaced a few months ago due to 14 wires being plugged to 30 amp breakers. So now what was on a 30 is now on 15. Not sure if that helps but there are just so many variables here. None of the forced air gas heaters were running at the time except the upstairs top unit with high efficiency. Another oddity, the upstairs unit has a battery powered CO detector/smoke detector right next to the hard wired CO detector and it wasn't going off.

[Perito]

It's most likely a carbon monoxide issue. Power failure could damage the CO detector, but it's very rare. It's most likely a waft of CO-rich air passing the detector. It'll likely get worse if it's a real CO leak.

If your nighthawk doesn't have a readout on it (mine does), I suggest you get someone over there with a CO detector. Check for proper ventilation of the gas-fired heaters -- possibly a cracked heat exchanger.

[zbitner]

Well it turns out it was an electrical issue at the pole. We had intermittent phase loss. I knew it wasn't the CO detectors when all the hard wired detectors were going off on all three floors with a blinking dining room light and the battery operated CO detectors right next to them were fine. Since it was intermittent it took Commonwealth Edison three visits to fix the problem. Power always seemed to be on when they arrived. I had to have my electrician come by and talk to the ComEd guy directly so he would install new connections at the pole. A 2 minute fix. Got to be tough with them sometimes.

[ballengerb1]

I have had trouble with some Nighthawks too and had to replace the unit. Your situation does clearly sound like an intermitent electrical issue. They will chirp if power cuts in/out or if the battery is low. In my case they sometimes chirp just because they felt like it.