Power Quality Monitoring at Home
 

We recently purchased new wired smoked detectors for the house. About 3-4 times in the past two months, the detectors have gone off for about 5 seconds during inclement weather.

I'm guessing that this might be do to a power surge or interruption, but I'm not sure. I see many devices for surge suppression or measuring usage, but I do not see any home power quality measuring devices that will show surges and sags. I would like to know that this is the problem before I pay an electrician to install surge suppression for the entire circuit board.

Can anyone point me to a relatively inexpensive monitoring device?

The truth is your house is actually on fire for a few seconds, but then the rain puts it out every time.

An inexpensive monitor is the clock on a microwave or the timer on a VCR. Meanwhile, smoke detectors also contain a UPS - that 9 volt battery. If power should be interrupted, then the battery simply takes over.

However, what is the detector supposed to do when power is lost? Flick off its circuit breaker to confirm.