BRK Brands 9120B Hardwired Smoke Alarm with Battery Backup, Single Individual from Contractor Pack
by BRK Brands
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of BRK Brands 9120B Hardwired Smoke Alarm with Battery Backup, Single Individual from Contractor Pack
Customer Review: Awful, just awful.
Summary: 1 Stars
I have four BRK9120 units in my house, fitted by the builder and wired together.
As others have mentioned, these units will randomly wake you up with low battery alarm sounds, which almost always seem to occur during the middle of the night. Often when you get up to investigate, the alarm stops.
If it doesn't, you have the problem of tracking down which alarm has the low battery, as on an interconnected system they all seem to beep when any of them has a low battery. There's no apparent visual indication of which one has the low battery. The usual process is to replace a battery, wait a couple of minutes to see if the beeping has stopped, go back to bed, get woken up again ten minutes later, replace a different battery, repeat until infuriated.
When you do replace the battery, if you check the one you took out you'll probably find that a battery tester rates it as fine. I've ended up with quite a selection of apparently good 9V batteries that the BRK alarms refuse to use. I've used some of the "bad" 9V batteries in other products, and they still have significant charge.
A bonus feature is that the batteries are fiddly to change during the day; the horizontal pivoting battery holder means that it can take several minutes of pushing and twisting and messing around to get them to go in. Imagine the joy at 3 in the morning while standing on a step ladder.
When the smoke alarm goes off--which it will, because invisible "smoke" from the kitchen at the other end of the house will set it off--there's no off switch. Pulling the battery won't help, because of the AC power. So you have to put up with the ear-piercing shrieking until all the connected alarms decide that the fire has gone. Since you can't see the alleged smoke they're detecting, there's no way to tell which alarm you should be fanning to make them all shut up.
In short, a badly designed product, so infuriating that I'd almost rather risk being burned alive. If I expressed how I truly feel, Amazon would censor my review for swearing. Instead I will simply note that I honestly would not fit a BRK alarm in my house if they gave them away for free. The product is so annoying it has negative value. If you have a relative you hate, fit these smoke alarms in their house.
Customer Review: Did not come with all the parts
Summary: 1 Stars
The 9120b package does not contain everything you will need while owning this product. It DOES include everything to get you started on your path to pain. I got it installed, up and running, and chirping loudly at all hours of the night as described by previous reviewers, but when my eardrums were pierced during a particularly brutal middle-of-the-night false alarm session and began bleeding profusely, I could not find the replacement pillowcase that should come standard with this product.
I've experienced the "beep once loudly every minute for hours" thing, but I have also endured nights of 30 minute full-on false alarms when this bad-boy decides he just hasn't had enough attention in recent weeks. Usually occuring around 3:00am, my first defense is trying to cover my head with the bloody pillow for some sort of relief from the unyielding racket. This feeble attempt lasts for only a few minutes before I desperately begin searching for something to use as a ladder. The next several minutes are spent twisting, pulling, clawing, punching, and spitting at the alarm, trying to get make something other than loud beeping happen. Telekinetic attacks are futile. "No way! I ain't shuttin up!!" the alarm boldly declares. I angrily vow to find the golden hammer that will end this epic showdown once and for all, but the relentless screams of the alarm are simply too much and I am eventually defeated. I resort to taking my crimson pillow to a closet or outside where I can fashion a makeshift bed out of leaves and branches to finally get some peace and quiet (although my ears, of course, are still loudly ringing). It is usually at this point that the alarm figures it isn't damaging my brain cells at an efficient rate any longer and gives it up.
I haven't won a lot of things in my life, but feel like I deserve a medal of honor for not committing suicide after owning a BRK 9120b. Maybe another item they forgot to include in the packaging?
Customer Review: So these are no better than the 4120B?
Summary: 2 Stars
I was about to buy a set of these, because they are supposed to be an upgrade to the discontinued 4120B. My 3 year old house was fitted with those by the builder. We've only ever had one night of full-on false alarms (which happened at 2 am, 3 am, 4am...) a couple of years ago. Now they've started chirping during the early hours. Our HOA meetings often have people moaning about the crappy alarm clock smoke detectors that were fitted to all of the houses in our subdivision.
Thanks, Amazon reviewers for saving my money. I'm an electrical engineer with several years' analogue and digital circuit board design experience. To say that these alarms can be set off by "power substation switching" is a poor excuse for a bad design. Consumer electronics should be designed to work properly in the environment they are intended to be used in. This is clearly not the case with these things. Being connected permanently to a 115V AC supply means they will be subject to supply noise, which shouldn't cause them to malfunction.
(Star rating given for 4120B model)
Update... I changed all the batteries in the chirping units and it cured that problem. I tested the batteries that I took out, and they all show up as being full on a cheap tester. However, the batteries are pretty well spent - put one in something that actually draws some current for just a few minutes (e.g. a guitar effects pedal) and it will give up the ghost. They seem to only chirp at night and in the winter when it gets cold in the roof void above the alarm. I suspect the cold air makes the battery voltage drop just enough to make the alarm think the battery is dead - which it basically is. Not sure what these AC-powered alarms do to kill an alkaline battery in less than 3 years when alkaline batteries have a shelf life of 5 years. They must take a tiny amount of current from the battery, even while on AC power.
Customer Review: BRK to KIDDE Replacements
Summary: 1 Stars
I was very happy to notice that some Kidde smoke detectors came with a wiring harness adapter that plugs into your current BRK wiring and retrofits them to the Kidde Adapter.
I actually didn't realize that was possible until I went to Home Depot to check it out. Kidde actually made the swap out a no brainer after reading all the bad reviews associated with BRK.
The detectors I went with were Kidde 120 Volt Front Load Battery Smoke Alarm. I also got their CO/Smoke combo alarm that happened to have Voice Announcements to indicate what the problem was beyond the tone. The CO/Smoke Detector didn't have the adapter but it only took 5 minutes to rewire the connection. Our current building code require a CO detector in the home. Kidde detectors are a little more expensive but they all have hush buttons and tell you which detector went off. Their battery replacement doors are also really nice and warranty is 10 years instead of 5. You'll note the BRK detector says replace by on it and that date is always 5 years from manufacture. So Kidde's maybe twice the cost (at ~$15), but they last twice as long.
I have 3 new detectors in total that are working perfectly so far. The reason for the swap out was that my old BRK detectors went faulty on me - They went off for 5 hours while I was at work. My poor house pets were clearly pissed off / shell shocked when I got home. I was not happy and the only way to silence them was to pull all 3 from the hard wire connection and remove their batteries to reset/silence them.
Thanks to all the other Amazon reviewers for saving me from installing BRK again. Your reviews led me to spend the time I needed to get a better product.
Customer Review: A good product that keeps my family safe
Summary: 5 Stars
I'll be very specific. This review is for the BRK 9120B Alarm. I bought a bunch of them to replace the hardwired alarms in my fifteen year old house. A warning beep that replacement was necessary was the first sign that one of the original BRK alarms (a different model number) was failing from old age. Of course the beep was repeated on all nine alarms in the house so I spent about an hour tracking it down to the failing alarm which I removed from the loop. Sure enough, silence returned.
I did my homework on BRKs website and figured this alarm would be a direct replacement for what I had. I ordered one just to be sure. Indeed, it installed perfectly with no rewiring. Also the product tested perfectly as an individual alarm and in alarming every device in our house. There is an indicator that illuminates to show that it is the device that initiated the alarm.
After that, I ordered enough more of the alarms to redo the entire house as I figured if one was failing, the rest couldn't be far behind. I certainly got my investment out of the original ones.
One additional point. The new ones are packaged with a little dust 'bonnet' to cover them during installation. I'm saving those bonnets to use to cover them when we do the next major clean-up and painting of the house. I don't want the alarms ruined by dust or paint intrusion by unrelated handiwork. I'll of course remove the bonnets as soon as the dirty work is finished in each room.
I'm absolutely confident that these products will protect us as I installed them myself following the manufacturer's instructions.