Fire and rescue services promote the slogan ‘Test it Tuesday’ as a way to remind people that they should test their smoke alarms every week[ref]It looks like this was setup by an alarm manufacturer, but it has been promoted by many of the fire services as well.[/ref]. While most alarms state on them, and in the documentation, that they should be tested every week, most people don’t. As a result of the campaign, I have a weekly recurring task in my todo list to test the alarm. It turns out though that doing a weekly test is not enough.

Several times today, one of our smoke alarms has been getting set off spuriously. Each time I checked and ensured that there was in fact no smoke. Perhaps it was because we had all the windows and doors open. Perhaps it was getting a bit of hayfever. But it was irritating and worrying in equal measure. I looked up the manual and it turns out that as well as doing a weekly test, you are also supposed to clean it every three months with a vacuum cleaner. I had no idea. It has been in place for over seven years now without ever getting vacuumed!

Since getting a clean, it has been running without issue. Looks like I need to add another recurring task to my todo list.