We, for the first time, tried purchasing the Lowe's house
brand batteries rather than a name brand from Costco.
Since October we have been getting sporadic calls
about chirping smoke detectors. At first we simply replaced single batteries as
they failed. As we became more suspicious of the battery quality we began
changing all batteries in a home when one failed. Unfortunately, we did not
keep track of whose batteries had been changed out, still thinking that it was
probably a single package of bad batteries. We have now had enough
failures that we are offering to replace batteries at your convenience for no
charge. Call us to schedule an appointment if we have not already changed yours
as a result of this problem.
Not all problems will be solved by changing batteries. Smoke
detectors have a life expectancy of 10 years
based on the product manuals accompanying new smoke detectors.
We have a claim in to Lowe's, but at present they are still
selling their UtiliTech brand batteries. They maintain that these were
isolated incidents, and to date have only offered to refund batteries that we
bring back in. We feel the problem is bad enough that we will absorb our labor
and the cost of new batteries.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has
caused.
