I am getting ready to add a couple of smoke detectors in my basement. My question is do they need to be in a row or can I use the last existing one as the junction to go to two new ones? Hopefully my fancy attached drawings help. I have not purchased them yet so I don't have a wire diagram, just trying to run wires. Thanks in advance
Question on adding hard wired smoke alarms
- Thread starter mc1984ss
- Start date
I found a better pic of the wiring example. I am not an electrician - but it looks like the red wire is the 'trigger' wire. So if one unit sends a signal down the red wire, the other ones are going to receive it. I would just call the manufacturer to be sure if no one can answer definitely for you, but it looks like your method would work
Attachments
each alarm needs power to it, one needs an unswitched feed , preferably on a circuit that gets used often . the rest get wired with 3 wire. as mentioned the hot & neutral go to the hot & neutral on the alarm, the red is the signal wire , it interconnects each alarm so when one goes off, each connected one does too. they all have to be on the same circuit , wired with 3 wire . any alarm can have the main feed to it
benjamintmiller
Well-known member
As the others said, all the black, white, and red wires are in parallel so you could run all of them back to one box if you really wanted to.
When I wire my basement up some day, I'll add a hallway light to the smoke detector circuit so I know right away if it loses power.
When I wire my basement up some day, I'll add a hallway light to the smoke detector circuit so I know right away if it loses power.
ddawg16
Well-known member
I wired mine off a section of lights in the house. You can give them their own feed, but most people suggest taping into and existing light ckt so you are more likely to keep them powered up.
yes , here it used to be smoke detectors were on a separate circuit, but they soon realized that wasn't the best idea. it was easy to disable them , either by choice or not knowing they were disabled . when they're on a common circuit, that's not the case