New shop: Angle grinder set off smoke detector

[Roger Feeley]

I didn't see any smoke. Was it some metal particles or something. Am I just going to have to give up the smoke detector in the basement shop?

[Larry Frank]

I gave up on a smoke alarm in my shop. Instead, I have a heat alarm which watches temperature and also rate of rise in temperature. My alarms are on a monitored whole house security system.

[Lee Schierer]

I have a smoke detector in my shop and I have to be careful about using my propane torch to heat my branding iron or do brazing. It also used to go off when I would do rip cuts and I would get some burning. Aligning my saw ended that problem. Now I try to remember to take the smoke detector out of the room before I use the torch.

[Jim Becker]

Larry mentions something important...in certain circumstances, you just cannot use a standard "smoke" detector because of how they operate when "what you do" puts smoke or smoke-like particles into the air. So a heat rise sensor is a good alternative to avoid false alarms...something you don't want, especially if your detection systems are connected to a security system that's monitored.

[Kev Williams]

example of when a heat sensor may not work:

2 years ago I turned on the swamp cooler in my garage. Like refer units, they're outside the house, blow cool air thru the window... A few minutes later my garage smoke alarm was going off. The garage was rank with electric smoke smell as the motor was burning up- but still running. It didn't catch fire, but if it had, my garage eaves would've been first to light up, and a heat detector inside would've never known until it was too late...

rather than replace smoke with heat detectors, I'd consider moving the smoke detector to a different location. A not-ideal location is better than no location I would think