To ask for your help in finding the thing that is beeping every hour

[OpheliaPlum]

Something in our house is beeping. It started about a fortnight ago and I’ve been turning off anything that might beep, like the oven, microwave or tumble drier to see if we can still hear it. I’ve discovered it beeps at ten past every hour, so this made me think it’s something with a clock. It is one electronic sounding beep, then nothing until the next hour. It is hard to localise but is definitely downstairs. Ive replaced the batteries in the two smoke alarms we have and it made no difference.

We have an intruder alarm, but there are no error messages on it. The freezer doesn’t have a clock, nor does the fridge.

What would beep once an hour and why?

Turn all your electrics off at the fuse box before it's due, that will at least let you know if it's something hard-wired/plugged in or not, might help cut down the list of things to check

I had this, it drove me mad. A few months later I was at a sporting event and one of the other refs saw my stopwatch and asked if the beeping drove me mad. It turned out she had the same model digital stopwatch as me and had identified that as the culprit. I banished the stopwatch to the shed between events and the problem was solved.

Hi...I've been lurking for a while but now joined so hi! Dishwasher? Need a new smoke akarmyas other pps have said...alarm or something on a laptop? I had this and it was my smoke alarm even after a battery change. Had to get a new one

Great idea! This will narrow down all the suspects in one go.

Beeping things drive me mad. We've had similar with a smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm. Also my freezer beeps when the door is left ajar.

I agree about checking anything that might have a backup battery. When I was last visiting my mother overseas we also changed all the smoke alarm batteries before tracking down the beeping to the battery for her backup telephone system. (they went onto internet only telephony years ago, and those who were identified as vulnerable in the event of blackouts were supplied with backup battery operated systems. Thank goodness - blackouts several times a year is typical for her I think).

I vote digital watch that’s set wrong! There’s one in my son’s room and if I am in there or nearby when it beeps I remember it’s there and go searching for it but I’ve never found it! Don’t know how it doesn’t annoyed DS!

I had a spare smoke alarm in a drawer doing this, check drawers? Most likely though the batteries weren't well-fitted, or one of the alarms has a fault. If it's a regular time then each of you stand under them and watch for the light to see which / both.

There's one of these threads every year. Once you've gone past carbon monoxide/smoke alarm batteries, alarm clocks and digital watches then it's always the pacemaker of the dead plumber trapped in the ducting in the loft.

Additional smoke alarm in loft. Always gets me because I forget about it.

I've got a freezer that beeps if the door has been left ajar for ten fucking seconds to let you know the temperature has dropped. However, even when it's closed and it's gone back down to -19, it will beep every hour until you press the button next to the temperature display to acknowledge that you have heard it. At least, I assume that's what it wants. I press the button and it stops. It drove me mad for about two days the first time, because you'd have to be right next to it when it does the beep to know that it's the freezer being an annoying bastard.

Temperature has risen, that should say!

Do you have a landline/cordless handsets?

Do you have a boiling water tap? This happened to us a while ago and took us ages to realise it was the boiler of the hot water tap beeping because the filter needed changing!

Do you have smoke alarms, it could be that. They beep when the battery is low.

Smart watch? My goes off every Saturday at 9pm and I dont know why 😄

Take the batteries out of the smoke alarms and leave them out 5 mins before the beep is due. If you don’t hear a beep, then it’s something other than the batteries, if you’ve recently changed them, but at least you’d know the culprit.

You need to position someone under every smoke alarm just before the beep's due, so you can rule those out completely (or not). Then position people in each room and discern which room it's coming from. Probably something in the hall, if it's loud downstairs? Maybe an older alarm which needs replacing in its entirety as posters have suggested.

That's the one.

OP, in our case, it turned out to be an old battery smoke alarm which had for some reason been packed by the movers when we moved from our previous house several years earlier and ended up in a box we'd never unpacked in the attic. It was weirdly hard to identify the exact location until we were right next to it when it beeped.

I eventually found mine which was from a set of bathroom weighing scales, which were in a cupboard on the landing and were low on battery.

Useful to know, thank you. Like @FatAgainItsLettuceTime was talking about? 'Heads'? I'll store that useful knowledge way for later!

Could it be next door's smoke alarm that is running out of battery? We could hear our next door neighbour's smoke alarm beeping. Drove us bonker. I don't know why they didn't just change the bloody battery.

Oh my this is so annoying, I have a mystery vibrating sound in the bedroom, you know when you have your phone on silent kind of vibrating sound when you get a message or an update.

All old phones would be dead by now and our phones are downstairs during the night so I have no idea what it could be, doesn't help my insomnia one bit

do yo live in a terraced house? I do and there is something next door that beeps every so often and it really sounds like it is in my house, but it is actually next door, just a thought?

We used to hear an alarm clock type noise at around 1am daily, we finally realised it was an alarm clock that was in the loft. Is that possible or a watch in a coat pocket or something.