Modern fire alarm systems seem to be designed to spare you a fiery death by killing you quickly with a heart attack (brought on by the 300dB screeching pulses coming simultaneously from every alarm in the house).

Or perhaps my (in hindsight extreme) reaction to the alarm was just that it was my first as a Dad. (In university days, false alarms barely roused me from sleep.)

Well as long as I’m never sleeping again, I guess it’s a good time to start reading up on why fire alarms might go off for no apparent reason and see what can be done to fix it.

I don’t think it would have been a CO alarm, unless a vent line in our furnace has a leak. (The system is entirely sealed to the outside.)

An errant bit of plaster dust flying about the basement, perhaps?

Since all the alarms are linked (by building code), we really have no idea which alarm actually triggered the event.

Jerry’s Insulating Co. paid us an unexpected but very welcome visit on Monday. Up until now the roof has been uninsulated and our second floor dropped to 15’C at night (we’ve been bundling the baby in 4 layers at night as he’s not one to keep his covers on).

From what I’ve read on HomeStars, Jerry’s Insulation seems to have a real problem with their spray-foam division, but like others on that site, we were very happy with the guys who came to do our loose-fill insulation for the attic. Professional, friendly, and accommodating. Because our baby needed to get down for his nap at the time they showed up, they rushed in, got the attic done and cleaned up in just 30 minutes.

They did show up without notice, though and we’ll leave that as our one gripe (someone couldn’t have called?). I don’t want to get the story too complicated but someone else was booking the insulation and we were trying for over a week to both rush the job (because it was getting colder at night) and find out when they were coming.

But at least we’re all cozy now (and the baby had no trouble getting down for his nap as soon as they left -whew)!

It’s worth mentioning Foam Comfort again, who are the excellent folks who put in the spray foam in our loft area. It seems they also have been reviewed positively on HomeStars, if interested.