Brilliant!

this is such a great idea--in our little (very old) apartment, we can hardly cook anything without setting off the alarm...though i definitely want to be careful to remember to remove it when i'm done. thanks for the tip!

Great idea! I had my first humiliating building wide smoke alarm experience making pizza this week, after always living in places with alarms that you could just turn off one by one. Standing outside with a neighbor in the rain for 20 or 30 minutes, in front of a parked fire truck with the lights and horn on, while the landlord drove in to unlock the panel to turn it off was completely ridiculous for a little smoke and no fire! The next day when we turned on the oven we opened all the windows and put in a fan, but that made the kitchen unpleasant in December. Will try the shower cap thing next time....

Thanks for sharing--this is great!

Very practical! Thank you for sharing the idea!

Thank you SO MUCH for this tip! My roommate and I have a very loud and hyper-sensitive smoke detector that goes off for things like boiling water and toast. We're definitely going to try this.

I have a small vornado fan that I point at the smoke detector to blow the smoke away. That usually does the trick for me.

Wow, what a great idea! I wish I'd thought of that a month ago when my oven wacked out and I ended up with Cajun-style pizza and a condo full of smoke. Thanks!

Ha - that was the trick we used to use in our college dorms for when we were "baking" as well.

Ha - that was the trick we used to use in our college dorms for when we were "baking" as well.

THANK YOU!! <3

If you don't have a shower cap, a gallon sized ziplock bag sealed around the circumference of the detector works just as well.

Disabling life safety systems is a horrible idea! There is so much to lose. Don't do it. Please!

Oh thank goodness, I hate letting all the heat out of the house just so I can use my stove!

If you leave the stool or chair you use to climb up there right underneath the smoke detector, it will serve as a huge visual reminder not to forget to take the shower cap down.

In our dorms, we used those red Solo cups. They fit snugly right over the smoke detectors.

It's important to remember that disabling the smoke detector is something you should only do temporarily, not all the time. Safety is important.

Tape a long ribbon on the shower cap, it will hang down and act as an extra reminder to remove it when you're done cooking.

Sorry, but I would never do this. What if there's a fire in another part of the house? When we burn food, we open windows and use a fan to get the smoke away from the detector. Works like a charm. I wouldn't touch something that might save our life someday.

For those who are questioning the safety, I bring up the following points:
1. the author's clearly say to take it off when you are done cooking, and several posters have offered helpful suggestions so as not to forget
2. if there is a fire in another part of your house, I would sincerely hope that you have more than one smoke alarm, meaning the others in the house would detect the smoke from a real fire
3. if you don't have more than one smoke alarm, it's probably because your home is small enough to not need one, in which case it seems unlikely that you would be in one part of your house while a fire was going on in another part without your knowledge.

I am never one to dismiss fire safety (I had an electrical fire in an apartment once), but I think the temporary idea of a shower cap is perfectly fine. And I look forward to getting my own sensitive alarm to kindly be quiet while I cook!

drats, "authors", not "author's"

Great idea! But now how to get the smell out FAST. Ugh. I need that info more than I care to admit.

Cooking is the leading cause of home structure fires and home fire injuries.

Kitchens are the leading area of origin for home structure fires (42%) and civilian home fire injuries (37%).

Home structure fires peak around dinner hours between 5:00 and 8:00 pm.

Almost two-thirds (62%) of reported home fire deaths resulted from fires in homes with no smoke alarms or no working (aka disabled) smoke alarms.

http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=953&itemID=23071&URL=Research/Fire%20statistics/The%20U.S.%20fire%20problem&cookie_test=1

I moved into a 530 square foot house, yes, house, last December, it has TWO alarms hard-wired in. ARG!

I bought shower caps in March and for the love, I haven't heard a peep since. Brilliant!

I will definitely try this!

On the safety issue, my problem is that I have a smoke detector/carbon monoxide detector in the kitchen. I also have one in each bedroom and the living room. All four are within 10' of each other. Whenever I turn on the gas stove, only the one in the kitchen goes off. The kitchen one is not needed, as the three others will protect my household. I am planning on disabling it, but if that doesn't work, I'll use the shower cap!

I love this idea. I agree, it's terrible to disable the alarms, but since I have no fan venting to the outside in my kitchen, it goes off so frequently (no, we don't eat charred food every day) that we finally took the batteries out. We have alarms in other parts of the house, so a fire elsewhere would still get caught, but when it's a choice between piercing unstoppable noise vs. ability to disable during the controlled burn of cooking and easily re-enable when done, this is a spark of genius.