Your smoke alarm goes off without fire occuring?

If the smoke alarm goes off because of steam or smoke from cooking, the alarm should be moved to a better location or a different type of sensor used.

It is very dangerous to have too many false alarms because people tend to ignore them, until the one time it really is a fire, and then it may be too late.

If a smoke detector makes an intermittent "chirp", not a loud and continuous alarm, it may be signalling that it is time to replace the battery.

Smoke detectors should be replaced every ten years, even if they still seem to be working, since they are only designed for a limited useful lifetime.