Atticposting #3: smoke alarms

The house came with approximately a bajillion (eight) expired smoke detectors installed in the three required locations. There were a couple of types: one set wired into a security/fire alert system, and then a mix of other bolt ons. They all had differently sized base plates with differently spaced screws in a mix of installed-with-drywall-anchors and just-kind-of-there holes.

The new smoke alarms matched a few of the existing holes, so I installed those there. That left all of the security system base plates just kind of there. It’s not worth it to me to yoink the security system which means covering it with some sort of plate which will look janky no matter what I do–

baseplate and companion hole with just barely visible screw hole tabs

[due to events and situations, two years pass]

Okay, time to do something about this. The new base plates are larger than the existing ones, so the screw patterns don’t align. However! The holes for the smaller plate are just inside the plastic for the larger plates letting me drill some new holes without requiring me to fabricate anything.

Two differently sized base plates, both viewed from the back. Left: security system. Right: new smoke alarm baseplate with smaller screw hole pattern marked.

New holes drilled, I checked the clearance between the back of the smoke alarm and the screw head (acceptable), and installed them.

Looks right, which is good enough. Now to do this for all of the others!

Installed larger base plate with the same mismatched screws that the original baseplate used.