Lots of lessons learned from today's mission and a quiz question...how many firemen does it take to fix a mains wired smoke alarm?

Unfortunately when I initially tried to reset Ms Y's fire alarm, it set the whole system off, and the only way to cut the noise was to switch off the power at the fusebox. However, about a minute later (with the power off) the smoke alarm in the kitchen started and we couldn't stop it. Ms Y and I agreed the best option was to call the fire brigade, who were able to come round in minutes.

They stopped the noise (which had attracted the attention of the neighbours...in some ways a good thing), and after a bit of fiddling were able to finally remove the smoke alarm in the hall from the ceiling and replace the battery inside the unit and re-arm the system. They also fitted two new smoke alarms in Ms Y's flat - and with that their work was done and Ms Y's flat was both silent and safe once again.

It had been an interesting 30 minutes...

(Five)