I just changed the batteries on 3 smoke detectors… and now I HATE THEM! One detector started chirping – it's battery was running low. So I ran out to the store and got 3 new 9v batteries (their price is another thing to hate, but I won't go there).
I got these smoke detectors several years ago primarily because they could detect smoke, carbon monoxide, and natural gas (my old ones only alarmed on smoke), but also because they had pull-out drawers for the battery. How nice, I won't have to remove them from the ceiling to change the battery. WRONG! The plastic drawers had nasty catches on them to prevent easily pushing them back in. I had to remove the whole smoke detector just to see why closing the battery drawer was so damn difficult.
Removing the detector was the easy part. Getting the drawer to close was harder, but re-attaching the detector to the ceiling was a bitch. I had three to do. You'd think that would be enough to figure out the trick to easily re-attach them. NO! Each one was balky & difficult.
So there's yet another Chinese conspiracy to disable the West! First deliberately design their export stuff so poorly that the parts almost fit together, next make the directions impossible to read or understand (you need both a microscope and a Chingrish translator), and finally sell them for anything but cheap.
There, [RANT OVER/]. I should be thankful those smoke detectors use 9v snap top batteries, and not those pitifully weak AAA batteries. Then I'd be changing them every 4 months instead of every 4 years.
