Smoke detectors

[never_retreat]

I'm in the process of finishing my basement and need to add smoke detectors down there and the rest of the house. We only have a couple of battery ones now. If I'm going to do the job I might as well do it right.
Does anyone have experience with the low voltage type? I figured it would be cheaper than running 14-3 romex all over the place and easier.
Any sources for them on the cheap? I assume I will need some sort of controller also.

[CNYCacher]

I'm in the process of finishing my basement and need to add smoke detectors down there and the rest of the house. We only have a couple of battery ones now. If I'm going to do the job I might as well do it right.
Does anyone have experience with the low voltage type? I figured it would be cheaper than running 14-3 romex all over the place and easier.
Any sources for them on the cheap? I assume I will need some sort of controller also.

No. But, before you make this decision, have you seen the newer detectors which cone with 10-year lithium batteries? Walmart had them for around 20 dollars.  Reliability of wired without the wires

[zxcvbob]

Do the 24V wired SD's have a battery backup?  If not, what about a power failure?  I kind of like that battery powered ones (except when they start chirping at 2:30 A.M.)

[MrsSmith]

If you're trying to do smoke detectors on the cheap, I sincerely hope they're never needed and fail. That would be a hell of a thing to live with. You might want to consider monitored smoke & heat detectors through your alarm company if you use one. 

[never_retreat]

If you're trying to do smoke detectors on the cheap, I sincerely hope they're never needed and fail. That would be a hell of a thing to live with. You might want to consider monitored smoke & heat detectors through your alarm company if you use one. 

I don't mean cheep in general. I plan on putting in quite a few and way more than required by code.
The question was more about the low voltage ones because of the cost of the romex versus a small wire like phone wire.

[roo_ster]

I don't mean cheep in general. I plan on putting in quite a few and way more than required by code.
The question was more about the low voltage ones because of the cost of the romex versus a small wire like phone wire.

* Closet where breaker box lives.
* Physical plant area where furnace & air handler as well as water heater reside.
* Garage.

[Azrael256]

I have a few of them that the wife had installed.  The ones I have will work with just a controller, but we have them wired into the alarm system for monitoring as well.

If I recall correctly, they listed for $100/ea for the smoke detectors, but we were having the rest of the house alarm system upgraded significantly, so we got the fire monitoring gear (3x smoke, 1x CO, and 1x heat) for nothing.

They're FSA 210s from DSC.  They run $30-40 by themselves.  Photoelectric smoke with a built-in thermocouple heat detector and a loud-ish alarm.  Mine do not have an independent battery per-unit.  We have a battery for the whole system.  I'm actually backed up with two 120v that are original to the house and one battery unit from Kiddie.  They were actually the whole system when I bought the place, and I saw no particular need to tear them out.

They go off every time I test them.  The heat detector in the kitchen can't be nondestructively tested, but I did test one, and it works!  

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

* Closet where breaker box lives.
* Physical plant area where furnace & air handler as well as water heater reside.
* Garage.

add attic and crawl space with an explosive gas detector in crawlspace