How sensitive are smoke detectors?

Now that im in college, i have to worry about smoking around smoke detectors. I just now smoked in the bathroom with the shower running hot water, and i taped a bag around what could be a smoke detector in the bathroom. There are also two smoke detectors in the hall outside the bathroom that i didnt tape up, but i put a towel underneath the door so that no smoke could get outside the door. So what im asking is, is this a safe spot? Exactly how sensitive is a smoke detector and how much smoke does it take for it to detect it?

Edit: I should also mention that im living in a brand new dorm building that is more like an apartment. My place has a living room and 4 rooms and 2 bathrooms.

open a window. unless you are blowing gigantor bong rips right into the detector eye thing, youre alright. if you have an RA id be more concerned with the loud giggling and pungent odor of the ganja spilling out of your apartment. but when i had an actual landlord it was no big deal really. he always emailed hours before he stopped by and really did not give two shits of we were baked mickey when he came over. we paid on time and weren't pigs thats all they care about.

biggest issue is stingy neighbors that call the five-oh. develop good relationships with them and whoevers in charge and even if the fire alarm does go off, just say you were cooking stew or something. always be cooking anyways when ya smoke :thumbsup:

if youre in a college town anyway where everyone and their dog is red-eyed 7 days a week, you dont have much to worry about at all if you aren't just wild about it.

just tape a walmart bag over it, or just steam up the shower and smoke out the bathroom :rasta:

I would say, pull it from the ceiling (or where ever it's fitted), so it can be placed back in and taken out easily, and just give it a test. If it's not that sensitive to blowing cannabis smoke straight on to it, just having the window open should be fine. I've got one in my room which is reasonably small, and it has never gone off threw smoking in my room which I do more than frequently.

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Originally Posted by WEsmokeED

just tape a walmart bag over it, or just steam up the shower and smoke out the bathroom :rasta:

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Thats what ive been doing... but i am little bit worried about the smoke hitting the detectors when i leave the bathroom. Am i just being paranoid?

Oh yea... and there is not a window in my bathroom.

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Originally Posted by TOOL9

Thats what ive been doing... but i am little bit worried about the smoke hitting the detectors when i leave the bathroom. Am i just being paranoid?

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Ive never had it go off on me, but i do have a window.
Also if you use some kind of body wash like Axe or whatever that covers up the smell just spread some in the bottom of the shower :rastasmoke:

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Originally Posted by WEsmokeED

Ive never had it go off on me, but i do have a window.
Also if you use some kind of body wash like Axe or whatever that covers up the smell just spread some in the bottom of the shower :rastasmoke:

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lol yea i went and got some febreeze today

Dude fire alarms are very sensative. Me and my friends stayed at a hotel and they thought it would be fine to light up in the bathroom with the fan on. After a couple hits the fire alarm went off. We fanned it for a really long time to get it to stop though. What we did is pull the face part off and there's like a couple wires behind it. Disconnect the wires and the battery and put the face part back on.

It probably varies....

I'm at university at the moment and I have a smoke detector in my room which isn't sensitive at all, I have had about 4 people smoking in here before and it didn't go off, I just have the window open and I'm fine.

Ask some other people around your campus, they might be able to tell you wether its a good idea or not!

^^ yeh it varies, soem are super sensitive, some aren't.. And steam works the same as smoke, it'll set some alarms off

if there is enough smoke in the room to set the thing off people will smell it outside anyway. i smoked in dorms many a time and i can tell you most times it went unnoticed, a few times people smelled it, amoke alarms never went off

I still live at my parents, and my room has a smoke detector. It's a pretty small room, too. Only about four people can fit in it comfortably. We toke it up in here so bad sometimes that the room is hazy. It never sets off the smoke alarm, though. We were high one night and decided to try and set it off, so we each took a big hit and blew on it at the same time. No go. After that we thought it might be busted, so I lit a piece of paper and held it about three feet below and it went off instantly. Maybe pot smoke isn't hot enough to set one off? Maybe the bong water cooled it enough? We've used pipes and joints too... maybe stoners invented the smoke detector!

most smoke alarms work on a small amount of decaying radiactive medium. it emits particles which are picked up my a sensor, this allows the circuit to break and so triggers the alarm. normal smoke from a fire is dense and so the circuit is broken. cigarette smoke isn't that dense but cannabis smoke is more so. its likely at your college they aren't that sensitive. they know that people are gonna smoke and so dont want to have em too sensitive.

when i was at uni my smoke alarm wasn't even a smoke alarm, it was a heat alarm. it didnt go off, even when i made a smoke bomb and set it off in my mates room when he was asleep. it did however go off when i held a lighter underneathe it.

upshot. check if it aint a true smoke alarm you got nothin to worry about. becareful if you disconnect it though cus you mite need it if you are smokeing adn then might check.
you could however replace it with a dead battery. that way it willl never go off.

peace

I also have a question about smoke alarms...

Me and my room-mate got a kickass room on the first floor of a dorminatory. It's outside the hall on the outside of the building so I don't have to worry about people smelling it, it just that this room used to be made for handicap people and it is rigged with shower sprinklers in the ceiling so that whenever a fire does occur it will put it out.

So, we already tried taking to down once and about 5 minutes later a security guard knocked on our door and told us there was a stress signal or something coming from this room. Asked if he had been cooking anything or messing with the alarm, we said no. So that is out of the question.

Now my room-mate already blazed a few times in the bathroom but it was just like 2 small bowls, and we have a vent in the bathroom that he blew into. Do vents suck inside air out to the outside? Also, if we just plan on smoking bowls in the bathroom and I tape a walmart bag over the detector do you think we'll be safe? Peace, Love & Happiness. :rastasmoke:

stress signal? or distress?

crazy

go and ask the security guard what causes that to go off (u can say u been cooking or something) and ask him if u can get it changed to a normal smoke alarm.

One of two. I forgot what he exactly said. But basically he knew we were fucking with it.

if its a vent in the kitchen it will pull air out, so like smoke and stuff when cooking. pass it through a filter and then outside. so you should be all good. just depends where the vent is near

the vent is in the bathroom... is there a difference?

We spent nearly every day of both semesters last year roasting in our dorm, and never once did we set off the smoke detector. We had an open window with a fan blowing outwards, and that was it. The only issue was the smell. We made a sploof to fix that. Our room smelled drier-sheet fresh!

My mother, who in fact used to smoke a lot of pot when she was about my age, told me that cigarette smoke and marijuana smoke don't set off smoke alarms. She's been smoking both for about 40-45 years.

I'd say it totally varies.

My smoke alarm at home will go off after a steamy shower.
We smoked hookah in the room and my dorm smoke detector didn't go off. (Extremely stupid idea, looking back though)

Use this trick: tape a bag over the smoke detector

If you make it airtight you could even hotbox that shit. Except your RA would probably be able to smell it from the other side of the building.

it really all depends on the smoke detector cuz i have one down stairs in my living room and i smoke in my room sometimes with my door open and it doesnt pick it up....but just tape something over it ull be alright

At University, the 'smoke detectors' actually turned out to be heat detectors, and wouldn't go off if you smoked in your room. Are you sure it's not a heat detector? They look pretty similar.

The smoke detector in my room has never gone off, and i've toked a LOT in here...

I would just go outside, or if you have a car there sit in it, or make friends with someone who has a car.

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Originally Posted by toozlah

We spent nearly every day of both semesters last year roasting in our dorm, and never once did we set off the smoke detector. We had an open window with a fan blowing outwards, and that was it. The only issue was the smell. We made a sploof to fix that. Our room smelled drier-sheet fresh!

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i honestly thought that you were my room mate last year in the dorms cuz i read that post and that is exactly what we did to the tee.. all the way down to one fan blowing out and a sploof. we also put some dryer sheets on the air conditioner vent that blew into the room.. it smelled good.. but was very hard on our breathing after a couple weeks.

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Originally Posted by action.420

I also have a question about smoke alarms...

Me and my room-mate got a kickass room on the first floor of a dorminatory. It's outside the hall on the outside of the building so I don't have to worry about people smelling it, it just that this room used to be made for handicap people and it is rigged with shower sprinklers in the ceiling so that whenever a fire does occur it will put it out.

So, we already tried taking to down once and about 5 minutes later a security guard knocked on our door and told us there was a stress signal or something coming from this room. Asked if he had been cooking anything or messing with the alarm, we said no. So that is out of the question.

Now my room-mate already blazed a few times in the bathroom but it was just like 2 small bowls, and we have a vent in the bathroom that he blew into. Do vents suck inside air out to the outside? Also, if we just plan on smoking bowls in the bathroom and I tape a walmart bag over the detector do you think we'll be safe? Peace, Love & Happiness. :rastasmoke:

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dude we are in the exact same boat

Last year in my dorm [was built new in i think 2002 or 2003], we'd smoke in the bath room. There were sprinklers in the bathroom, and then smoke alarms in the bedrooms right outside of the bathroom [think of 2 studio apartments connected via a bathroom].

Here's what we did: stuff towels under the doors, run the shower on hot [preferably put some shampoo/body wash in the bottom of it so it smells nice/covers up the smell], KEEP THE DOORS SHUT!!, and enjoy. My floor was a stoner floor-there was at least 6 sets of rooms out of probably 12 that smoked. We had more concerns about an RA coming by than anything.

We smoked primarily joints until i bought a one-hitter.

Now? I've got an apartment, so i just stuff my door, open the bathroom window, close the bathroom door, and enjoy my bong. No complaints/surprises thus far.

Honestly, it doesn't hurt to be safe, tape a bag over it as some said or try this method, get a cardboard roll in the rolls of toilet paper and fill it with those sheets you shove into dryers to prevent static from having the things cling together (name escapes me at the moment) and fill it to the brim with multiple layers, it'll act as a filter of sorts to catch the smoke, be warned, I've tried this once, its a hit and miss thing, be prepared for the worse.