Replace battery in Ei141 smoke alarm 

It's Thursday morning at 4am. You've had an absolute week of work, the stress is beginning to show on your face. At mercy though, you are having the deepest sleep you've had in months. Suddenly, you are jolted awake by a piercing chirp. "What was that?" you think, as your weary mind begins to pull itself from deep REM sleep. Another chirp. You recognise the trill, it's your smoke alarm! You jump out of bed in a panic, frantically sniffing for smoke and checking every room in the house. Nothing's there. Another chirp. "Here we go" you think to yourself, a spark of frustration piercing your exhausted body. You look at the smoke alarm and nothing seems amiss, the nights' calm beginning to soothe your weary eyes. You begin to hope it's doing some kind of temporary test and crawl back into bed as there are no obvious issues. Another chirp. "This isn't going to stop is it?" you remark internally, coldly. You pry your eyes back open and throw on a dressing gown. You realise you must act if you want any chance of recovering the sleep you were having and the long day ahead of you. You press the big button, hoping it hushes the alarm. No, it sets of the entire houses system immediately, waking all the neighbours. At least now everyone is aware you're a dickhead. You turn the mains fuse off for the alarm hoping to quell it's incessant noise. Another chirp. You go online to find out how to at least hush the alarm, so you can figure it out tomorrowv. You just want some sleep. All you can find is decade old, obscure RU-vid videos, and reems of better designed American alarms, laying bare the problems and frustrations with the system you were born in. Another chirp. You realise the first step in the troubleshooting process is going to require you to risk your life at 4am, climbing a step ladder and applying asymmetric force to an awkwardly placed and installed alarm. Another chirp. At this point i nearly took a hammer to it and booked a plane to Fiji. You can turn the fuse off, disconnect the entire system plate with a screwdriver, remove the battery and press the button on the removed plate to stop the beeping. You bet that this thing will always start chirping between 1am - 4am, at the exact time you need sleep the most. You know there's some government designer/contractor somewhere laughing his ass off all the way to the bank, with the minimal engineering thought that went into this piece of shit device.

Yes, smoke alarms are a good invention, put this particular model isn't as easy to change batteries on as the video makes it look. After listening to the bib for two hours in the middle of the night you might start considering burning your house down just to shut it up.

The fact that this video has over 1,563,481 views, demonstrates that there's a big problem with the design of these smoke alarms. For every "it worked for me" there's also countless "the cover wouldn't slide off" remarks. If we end up damaging the smoke alarm trying to get the cover off, it defeats the purpose of having one in the first place.

This video really understates how unbelievably loud and invasive the beeping is. I live in a student house in which I actually have one of these little f**kers IN MY BEDROOM. Naturally when sharing a house chances to start pissing about with electrical circuits are thin on the ground, and of course the sticker to indicate which switch to flick is nowhere to be found. Put the battery in an easily accessible place? Nah. Make it so that you have to disconnect mains power and have the right sized screwdriver. Make solely the light flash or the beeping hourly to indicate a flat battery? No. Make it beep EVERY 40 SECONDS. This piece of s**t has driven me halfway to insanity, and I'm genuinely staggered by how poorly thought out and designed it is. I'm not usually one to complain but man alive..., and judging by some of the other comments here I'm not alone in this view.

As per rest of the comments, it was a nightmare to remove. Don't be fooled by how easy it looks in the video. I wedged two screwdrivers and my car keys in the gap between the mount and smoke alarm, then just spent ages trying to pull it down and away. Eventually it loosened and I was able to slide it off. You have to be careful with the downward force as I noticed the mount started to loosen from the ceiling - so I had to make sure I was pushing up on that while pulling down on the alarm. 2am, but I can go to sleep now.

Top Tip: once unit is off its base, then remove backup battery.. BEFORE putting in new battery, hold down the TEST button for 30seconds to discharge the unit fully! Only then put new battery in.. (otherwise it can still "remember" there was an old battery and starts chirping again)

Whoever uploaded this video should be elevated to the peerage. I am 80 years of age, and not known for my diy skills. I have 2 smoke alarm in our home. They both started bleeping at about 11.00am today -Sunday 21st of June. I straight away called in the assistance of my New Best Friend. My ipad. I immediately received comprehensive details about the make-up of my smoke alarm, all in easily understandable terms. I was then led to this RU-vid masterpiece of clear instructions. By 11.50 I had shot off to my local store. Got myself 2 replacement batteries. Returned home, and having had a refresher on the ipad, got up my stepladders and set to work on Alarm number 1. I followed the instruction to the letter. 5 minutes No1 was again fully operational . Into the kitchen and started on Alarm No.2. Which was completed in another 5 minutes. The whole job was completed by 12/45. 10 out of 10 to the poster of this masterpiece.

What a STUPID a design !!! I’m a 69 year old grandmother babysitting in my daughters house and just been balancing on a ladder to do this ! Took about EIGHT attempts with various implements to get it to release and yes, nearly toppled off when the thing finally gave way. Even after a new battery it’s STILL beeping so the unit is now in the boot of my car so we can get some sleep! But the video was really useful - thank you!!

The inventor of this should be enclosed in a house with 10ft ceilings and 100 fitted alarms. Wife is 5 months pregnant and the relentless BEEPING is just INSANE ! ONCE EVERY TWO HOURS IS ENOUGH MORE THAN ENOUGH !

Came for a solution. Stayed for the comments :D

A firm whack of the cover is what you need! A friend and I both tried multiple times, putting a screwdriver in and trying to lever it as shown in the video but the cover just wouldn't come loose, no matter how much we pulled at it in the direction indicated. What worked was putting the screwdriver in, whacking the cover firmly in the direction indicated with my palm, then voila! Off it came. Saves using the sledgehammer.

really enjoyed doing this, the middle of the night half asleep trying not to fall down the stairs, Ealing council fitted these and never bothered to service them. batteries expired march this year! and we're leaking.

Problem sorted. I've forced off, breaking the unit so I could get the battery out. What a badly designed product. Will make sure it's replaced with a unit that is more user friendly. I can understand the need for beeping to alert you to a low battery, but MAKE IT EASY TO CHANGE THE DAMN BATTERIES!!!!

This is the single BEST video I have ever watched on RU-vid. Smoke alarm was driving us demented, online forums not much help in working out how to fix. Watched this, 5 minutes late - peace. If I could nominate this video for an award I would!

This is the job from hell. No wonder people die in house fires having disabled their alarms. I had to pull my alarm bodily from its ceiling mountings to allow me to remove the cover and access the battery. Easier to cut the wires and throw it away. Poor design and potentially fatal. Thanks for the upload tho'!

I want to sincerely thank you for this video. It saved my life and sanity.

Praise the Lord for this video at last I've managed to open the damn thing. I would add, spending nights trying to persuade yourself the intermittent 'beeps' are the soothing sounds of a Nepal waterfall doesn't work, nor does hitting it. Would really help too if the Landlord could simply leave instructions akin to the above in the property, but I guess that's too difficult....

I love this comment section, it’s so unapologetically British and I love it.

Started beeping just around midnight - (a hellish omen). Alarm way up beyond my reach in my converted barn with exposed beams - lovely! Woken every hour by dog barking and beeping of alarm - by morning I was ready for battle. Obtained dangerously high ladder and tried to remove cover every which way whilst balancing precariously on upper rungs. Finally decided to take a hammer to it but then thought I should look on RU-vid - a thousand bows and thank yous oh wise one!

why does the battery alway run out in the middle of the night?... beep beep all night long Grrrr

I wonder how many people have died trying to stop the annoying beeps from the ceiling compared to how many these things are supposed to save.

Thank you so much for this video, been suffering annoying beeping noise for several days, after watching this video I can now rest peacefully. Job done, replaced the backup battery. Will add the video to my DIY playlist.

Always happens in the middle of the night, years since the last time so you've forgotten how to change the damn thing. Having been driven to the edge of firestarter practice by the noise, I learned to keep a spare ( really expensive ) 9V in my kitchen drawer. Still had to get the you tube video the step ladder, two different flat head screwdrivers and a magnifying glass out to do this. 😳😳😳 . Now wide awake. May need Gin .

Was put in such a bad mood trying to disable this thing in them middle of the night. Took me a very stressful half hour to figure out how to remove the alarm from my ceiling to replace the battery. I don't have a spare battery and won't be able to get one for the next few days, so I hope it doesn't set off the interconnected alarms in the mean time. These comments have me in stitches! I love how everyone is commiserating and I really respect how Safelincs Ltd. is replying so maturely and uses the criticism productively! Faith in humanity restored :)

I feel for all the people on here - very frustrating. I had some spare batteries but none of these seemed to help so I bought a brand new battery but the beeping continued. I tried to blot it out for a day then found out how to disconnect then so we could get some sleep. Knew I couldn’t leave it like that and managed to find the model type and a helpline number. I must say the girl on the other end of the line was very patient and went through the whole process of checking what the issue could be but it still didn’t help. She kept saying ‘are you sure you haven’t got another detector somewhere’ but I couldn’t find anything then my wife came out and said what’s that up on the first floor landing! Anyway - big thumbs up to the people at Aico for their help!!

Had to change batteries in a number of these things. In a domestic environment, they are a safety hazard. A risk assessment should be carried out to assess the suitability of a product. The risk of falling from a ladder whilst trying to insert a screwdriver and attempting to slide the unit off the base to high ( especially when the unit suddenly releases under force ) when compared with the risk of the PP3 battery being borrowed....! No way these units should have a CE certification the access to change the battery is just too great a risk.

Thank you! One of the alarms just woke me up at 2am and I was about five minutes away from smashing it to pieces. I even heard a beep when I took the batteries out of both as I'm to tired to sort it out! so it may still find itself in pieces tomorrow. But tonight I can sleep, cheers

Took me a good 10 minutes to get that alarm off without breaking it, and on a swivel chair D: So I was spinning while doing so

This was actually so useful! I went through a crisis today and the alarms wouldn’t stop going off, I thought I was going deaf because it was going on for so long😫 finally, this video came to my save and I’m so grateful for the Internet🥰🥰🥰

Very helpful. Thanks. To make things easier for next time, I've filed down the plastic 'latch' on the lower section of the alarm. To remove it now, I simply have to slide it off. No need to search for a suitable screwdriver at 2 am in the morning! Also, I've invested in a 'lithium' battery - should be good for 10 years!

My whole flat has these smoke alarms. Went off all at the same time, drove me nuts even though there was no fire

like many other people, half vandalised it trying to get it off the bracket. Thanks to this video i have got it off to replace the battery and the damage is only cosmetic so the replacement i brought is going back.

You took the words right out of my mouth. This is an excellent video. I feel so clever having changed my first smoke alarm battery.

Excellent vid! After struggling myself for weeks trying to fathom these alarms out, had all three sorted in 5 minutes, so thanks!

Luckily for me it's in my 19 year old son's loft bedroom. It's been beeping for 3 weeks and I think today he'd had enough as I just saw it half dangling off the ceiling. He's struggling to get to the battery compartment. I'll just leave him to sort it out because after a 10 second look, I knew it was an almost impossible job. As Drago said, "If he dies, he dies".

It is 5:34 in the morning, I have been up since 4:20 AM - The beep scared me, and it was a while before I narrowed it down to this smoke alarm. Finally needed to google to find out what needs to be done. Interesting to find so many comments that it always beeps in the middle of the night. What a nightmare design!!! No chance of getting back to sleep now, too keyed up.

It's Sunday 6 am and this lovely item started beeping. Had no idea there was an back up batterie and with 3.60m high ceilings life got a bit tense. Thanks god I found this video before loosing will to live. It's very clear and really helps solving this problem...so long you have a spare batterie, a fitting screw driver and a big ladder. Also I agree with all my fellow writers - what a stupid design and how difficult to change the batterie. Big ladders, power circuits switched off...up and down and fingers crossed. Highly annoying and with no commen sense. and one last thing...got a bit nervouse about comment that after 10 years this smoke alarms getting a bit silly...

life saver video! the cover was very difficult to remove without the video illustration. thanks.

Judging from all the comments below, coupled with personal experience, this thing does seem to conveniently run low on battery in the middle of the night. The manufacturer sure knows how to save lives as well as torment them in the process.

Chirp Chirp Chirp all night long. My dog is a mess, she thinks there is a bird in the house. Wish I had one of the removal tools. Video is excellent. Battery changed Thank Goodness that's over!

My alarms were beeping which I initially found odd as it's a new house and therefore the alarms are mains wired. Turns out they still have batteries (well done Duracell for your lobbying). Thanks for the video!

Thank you thank you thank you so very much. I tried ages to sort this out and could not get it off the ceiling, your video instantly made it clear. I would have been lost without it. You are a star for posting this/

Badly designed, TED talk needed. I almost fell down the stairs trying to change the battery in this c**t.

Beeping in the middle of the night (of course) - fixed inside of 3 mins with a screwdriver and spare 9v battery. Helped that the alarm was easily accessible - just stood on a chair. I didn't bother killing the mains power first.

Angling the blade slightly downward on a pair of decent size scissors (and a push) finally got this thing off for me! Screwdrivers tend to have handles that are too chunky and make locating the release block infuriating. Perhaps Ei could design the next one so that it doesn't need a 'special tool' to get the lid off it. At least it's quiet now. Time for a cup of tea...

Thank God I found this video. I was about to smash the whole thing up. 'Insert screw driver and unclip. Easy'. Pfah! More like 'try not to lose your mind, stay calm and start googling and there damned bloody well better be a video about this specific alarm otherwise prepare to move out and start a new life!'

I agree that this is a nightmare job, and also agree with the comments about the poor design of these units. When I finally managed to dislodge the cover it went flying and crashed on the floor (fortunately it didn’t break). That said, I am very grateful for the video. It’s the best one I have found and the narrator’s calm voice and detailed instructions with close-ups really helped me. Thank you for uploading this.

Thank you !!!! Simple instructions and alarm now sorted. A better nights sleep ahead of us tonight

I looked for my instruction leaflet but couldn't find it. I should have started here! A very helpful video. Thanks.

I had this system installed in my house after a minor fire. It has been reliable but when I tried to change the battery after persistent beeping, I found it impossible to open up the sensor. I ended up just ripping it off the ceiling. I think it is quite poor. The upstairs alarm was installed, against my wishes, at the top of the staircase where it poses a far greater safety hazard than a potential fire. Quite frankly, weighing up the cost of installation etc, I think people are just as well off buying smoke alarms on Ebay and installing them themselves where it is safe to deal with them. Also, the electrician felt that a sensor was needed in my kitchen. I agree that this was sensible. I have a fan oven and, whenever I turned it on, the whole house's integrated system would go into a major alert, with neighbours being alerted too. I ended up having to disconnect the kitchen sensor.

Considering that it's going to be located right under the ceiling, and possibly over a stair well, this does seem a remarkably inept design. I did get it to open as shown, however it was pretty awkward to do. Incidentally, please tell the designers that some people are colour blind to green and telling them to look for a green light isn't helpful! It can be any colour it likes, as long as it's labelled in some way so we know what its purpose is.

Thank you very much. Saved me a couple of hours and a breakdown. You got a new friend.

Glad I watched this, my neighbour reckons that I don't have to switch the electric off! It will be switched off just incase!

It was 5 30AM and I have had 2.5 hours sleep. There is no 9V battery in my home, so the beeping has had to continue, no shop is open at this hour. Sat here in shotgun ear defenders feeling like the victim of some new form of torture. The bloody thing decided to go off every few minutes. I am not pleased. Couldn't deal with it any more so just removed it with a golf club. Just complete shit. Honestly drove me to violence. Don't care as they cost a tenner on ebay.

Thank you for this video, brilliant I changed mine by following this ,ive never done anything like this before very very easy.

Thank you so much for uploading this video you saved the day.i have chronic tinitus so the noise is excruciating for me; Last time I had to ring the council & wait hours for him to change the battery. He didn't show me how to do it ! & He had the typical bad attitude! So thank you 🤩

Thank you, honestly, this thing's been going off for a week

just changed the battary without any problem. Followed the video instructions without any difficulty

Great video. The trick indeed is to slide the base unit away from the screwdriver. Don’t pull down, as I did with the first one. I’m doing all of ours now, while it’s daytime and I’m sober. I guess when one battery goes the rest will shortly follow suit. Imagine trying to do this in the middle of the night!

Thank you so so much. I moved into a weird property and everything was complicated. Thank you so much for you help, I really appreciate it ❤

It's 4 o'clock in the morning and I don't have any replacement batteries in the house. Even when you take the alarms down, take out the old batteries and switch off the circuit at the mains, they still bloody chirrup! They are now in the bin outside. Great fire safety feature that- make them so bloody annoying that rather than being willing to go and get new batteries when the shops open, at this point I would rather burn to death than put up with these bloody alarms!!!

Utterly incompetent design.

Thank you so much for teaching me how to change the batteries :)

fantastic. this thing have been bleeping for ages, i nearly burn it. Thank you so much

I didn't sleep the whole night😨 it's chirping every 40 seconds. Why 40 seconds mate!!!

Great help Thank you did not realise there was a battery in the alarm

Thank you so much for making this video, it's essentially given me a quiet night by showing me how to change my smoke alarm battery :)

0:57 just changed mine over, so easy and I’ve 12ft high ceilings. No spare battery so wrapped detachable part (part that beeps) in a large towel, placed in conservatory so I can’t hear it and this will do until I get a new battery in the morning. Single female btw……..thanks for the instructional video!

Useful video and managed to change the battery in the early hours of this morning!

brilliant thank you stopped beeping now always easy when you know how, spent hllalf an hour twisting and pulling but thanks to this video all sorted

Thank you so much was rudely awoken at 2am by my hallway alarm only just recently moved into my apartment and wasn’t familiar with these alarms yet

WHY DO YOU MAKE IT LOOK SO EASY

Brilliant. Should have thought of YouTubing it before I replaced the last one and broke the cover in the process. Watched the video, cover came off easy as and back on just as easily. Job done. Thank you.

This was very easy to do the trick is to use a small flat blade screwdriver, make sure that you insert where there the dip is on the hole. As you slowly pull down you will feel it unlock than push the bottom part away from you.

I was lucky, seeing other comments. It woke me up only 2 hours before my normal time, Ive sturggled for one hour, then gave up, and went to sleep in the living room xD Was able to rest enough before work :)

3 metre ceilings, no ladder, work shifts, beeping every hour, then every 30mins, then every 15secs...arrgghhh! was considering using a hammer. Kindly neighbour built chair tower with two chairs facing each other and a lego box/crate on top, we watched this video then sorted it out! thanks RU-vid for saving my sanity!

Great vid! Stopped the bleeping thanks to you!:-)

Very helpful video. Thanks for uploading it onto RU-vid ☺️

This video really helpful to me. Thanks to you, I've solved the problem.

aarrhg! My alarm has been beeping since 11pm last night and I cannot get the cover off for the life of me. Have tried all kinds of screw drivers, nothing works. It's Christmas Eve and my daugther will never go to sleep with the beeping, and neither will I. Plus I have my mum staying and the alarm is right outside her bedroom door! As someone else said, no wonder people die in fires with disabled smoke alarms, I'm going to have to smash mine to get it off the wall and stop it beeping! Help!

Here I am. It's 4am in the morning, and this bloody thing has just started beeping, EVEN though it is connected to the mains, so why would the battery even cause this problem? I've followed all instructions and it is firmly stuck to the blasted wall. IT WON'T STOP.

Back from a holiday to be waken up early morning by this loud and frequent noise. Why does it have to be so difficult to change a battery, I don’t know. Hope someone invents something easier soon. The video is helpful.

Thanks for the video, so easy when you know how!

Thank God for RU-vid. This was driving me mad! Just changed the battery. 😃

Thank you for a clear demo

Thanks for the video. I had to push the driver vertically and outwards for it to open. Replaced the battery. Still beeping with new battery... (Without the battery it stops beeping so not other alarms).

Thank you I didn’t know I needed a flat pin screwdriver to remove the unit

Thank you for this very helpful video.

Thanks for the help. It saved me another year of trying to figure it out on my own. cheers

Hilarious comments! I found this video very helpful and was able to change my beeping alarm in no time at all. It's just a question of finding the right size screwdriver , inserting into the slot and giving it a wiggle until the catch is released , then sliding the unit off.

Thanks, helped me change the batteries in a stress free way 👍

This video is such a saviour!

Definitely a useful video....I managed to remove it.Thankyou so much

So helpful thank you 2 days trying stop the bip 😭

Good, clear directions!

Thank you for this video. I am a very clever person but I couldn’t work out what it meant by push away. It should say slide away instead because not many people would think of sliding it

Thank you the instructions saved my sanity!

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!! This really helped and wouldn’t of done it without the video. I’m useless at this lol 😂

Very usefull. Thanks to this video I sort it out easily.

Thank goodness for this video sanity has been resumed and I can sleep.