Travel and Vaping Smoke detectors in motel rooms?

[It's Only Me]

Hi everyone,
I travel faily often and stay in a lot of motel rooms and I always ask for a non-smoking room. So I'm sitting on the bed one night reading and vaping and suddenly realize that I might set off the smoke detector. I know there are different types so I'm thinking that vaping might set off some but not others. Obviously ones that detect heat won't be activated but what about the ones that have an eye that looks for smoke?

Any knowledge out there from fellow travelers? This would be a very embarrassing experience if I set one of those suckers off late at night.

Thanks.

 

[supertrunker]

Did the same recently when i stayed with the wife on a weekend out. No need to worry they will not go off.

We also got a non-smoking room. Smoke detectors are designed to detect small particles in the air from combustion and there's nothing like that. My wife and i vaped away very happily with no problems.

T

 

[Susan W.]

Gee, this is something I've never given a lot of thought to. I've vaped in hotel rooms with smoke detectors unaware that anything would happen. I would think that most of the vaper would dissipate before getting to the smoke detectors. I'd like to hear from others too.

 

[cags]

if I did set one off that way I'm afraid I would just deny, deny, deny. it must be a bad detector...do you smell smoke?
I guess that is bad though........

 

[SupplyDaddy]

Spent last weekend in a motel in Austin Tx. Non-Smoking.. wife and I vaped up the place... No issues!

 

[It's Only Me]

Thanks all, that's kind of what I thought. I'll just vape away and deny, deny, deny if anything happens.
But I have to say that if one does, the explaining would be substantial with the police and fire department rolling in.

You know I think I'll do an experiment at home. I have detectors that are all wired into one system. I'm going to put them to the test and vape right into one. I can shut it in a second. Let you know, but I think your all correct.

Thanks...

 

[dwcraig1]

I set one off a couple mornings ago at work, it set off the main alarm bringing the fire department. It's a quarter billion dollar piece of property. I ask the firemen to keep it to themselves and I would tell them what did it. It was a sad site to see all those wealthy older folks file out of there at 4:30 am. Smoke detectors with light beams it was and 24 watts on my Ithaka

 

[CATastrophe]

We have this one by First Alert in my office and if I am vaping heavily in there, it will trigger the alarm.

 

[It's Only Me]

Been away just about all day to come back and see that some can be set off. I haven't done my experiment with mine in the house yet due to the fact that there is a family member sleeping.

So this is a real thing that I think I have to learn about. Like I said, I'm in a fair amount of motel rooms and don't want to get in a situation. There would be a lot of explaining to do and a real pain in the you know what if it happens.

Besides my professional employment I'm a Volunteer Fireman/EMT. You would think I'd know about these things but only that you should change out your battery and test it every once in awhile. But I do know that in my town if you have more than one or two false alarms in a certain period of time, the town will fine you in restitution of the costs to run personnel and the trucks out to a house. I would imagine if I set off an automatic alarm and I had an entire fire company and some police show up, I could be fined and/or pay costs. That's a little more that just giving an explanation.

Maybe this isn't a big deal, I'm just thinking it through a bit. But maybe it could be to someone somewhere.
Hope it's not me!

 

[DocFox]

I didn't even think about that on my last trip. I stayed in a Sheraton, and vaped all evening . No alarm at all. Then of course, the next morning with coffee, still no alarm. I don't know just how big a cloud you'd have to make to set off the alarm, but with my models, there isn't much of a cloud build up over time.

 

[317Vapers]

They won't go off i vape in hospital rooms bathrooms and they have some detectors and i cloud it up in there never had a issue. Most smoke detectors smell the chemicals put of in fires and cooking which triggers the smoke detectors which is why is not advisable to have one in the kitchen

Sent from Galaxy Note 2 using Tapatalk 2, so there will likely be typos!

 

[dwcraig1]

Smoke detector - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Read the section on the "optical" ones to understand why an ecig can set it off.

 

[Rusty S.]

I'm no expert, but the motel/hotel smoke detectors might be different from the ones you would find in an office building--in a hotel room, there will be steam from showering, whereas in an office building, that wouldn't be anticipated.

Basically, when you're vaping, you're making steam. If it makes you feel better, you can do it in the bathroom under the exhaust fan, but I'd imagine that the alarm installer already anticipated a certain amount of water vapor when they put the alarm in.

Just a guess, not based on any particular knowledge. Oh, and I've known people to set off the detectors at B&Bs when they were showering. Maybe you could use that as an excuse if it goes off?

 

[moondragon]

I've stayed at 5 or 6 different hotels since I've started vaping, and have not had any problems with the smoke detectors in the rooms - at least not so far . I haven't tried vaping in other parts of the interior of the hotels - I just wait until I get up to my room.

 

[Lizzie]

There are two main types of smoke detectors - ionic and photoelectric. Ionic smoke detectors are set up to detect the smoke from an open fire so are less sensitive to small amounts of vape. Photoelectric models detect smouldering fires and are much more sensitive. Smoke interrupts photoelectric beams and once the pattern is recognised the detector will activate, it won't be able to tell smoke from vape, it will just detect something interrupting the beam. Ionic detectors are less sensitive so are sometimes preferred if showers frequently set off false alarms. Other companies may prefer an earlier warning to sleeping guests and use the photoelectric variety but at the risk of false alarms. It can be hard to tell them apart! I don't know much about fire safety regulations in the US (in the UK it can be either), but it may be worthwhile checking the State Code to see if either type is required in sleeping accomodation. Sorry for rambling a bit there!)

 

[dwcraig1]

Lizzie has said it well

 

[gotalotgoingon]

Where I work, we have three of us that set in a 24' x 10' control room with a state of the art fire system and vape clouds for 12 hours with zero problems.

 

[f4ndango]

Never had a problem here.

 

[zWarlock]

Thought about this a few times while vaping at work .. would hate to trigger the sprinkler system or something .. wow that would suck!

 

[Diesel Dummy]

I stay in hotel rooms every day of the week (home on the weekends) and have never had one problem.