Ugh. My grandpa is a 37 year veteran of the FDNY who'd kill me if he knew, but I deactivated mine.
The same grandfather is also the product of a family that owned a pizzeria, and makes pizza at home all the time- with the oven as hot as it goes- and I remember countless pizza nights growing up that were spent with me standing under the smoke alarm fanning it with a towel because he refused to turn it off.
Love my grandpa.

Most smoke detectors are ionization models (tend to be cheaper) and they go off when when you cook or shower if there is a lot of steam or a little smoke. A photoelectric model won't go off so easily because it detects fire/smoke in a different way. They cost just a bit more but it is SO worth it!

http://www.firstalert.com/detectors/battery/photoelectric/SA710CN

We switched ours out at our old apartment because the ventless bathroom made for some frustrating showers with the touchy ionization smoke detector outside. Worked like a charm.

My smoke alarm is so sensitive that even with all the windows open and my Vent-a-Hood going full blast it still gets smoky when I sear meats. So, I put a shower cap or a piece of plastic wrap secured by a rubber band over the smoke alarm while cooking, and remove it immediately afterwards.

Oooh, I may have to do farmersdaughter suggestion, because my smoke detector drives me CRAZY. It goes off all the time, even if there isn't smoke. I had the oven cleaning cycle on last night and had to turn it off after an hour and a half because the smoke detector wouldn't stop going off. If it's not February and 28 degrees out, I open a window.

I'm a fan of waving a dishcloth in front of the smoke detector until the darn thing goes off!

My husband and I finally came up with a workable solution. When we know that the alarm will likely go off we do two things: we grab a plastic grocery sack and a large rubber band we keep handy. We put the grocery sack over the alarm and secure it with the rubber band. We find it crucial to have excess bag hanging around the edges to keep more of the smoke at bay. This works about 90% of the time-sometimes smoke will still seep in under the edges and set it off, but most of the time this will do the trick. And because the bag is so obvious, we don't forget to take it down which allows our alarm to do the preventative work it needs to do when we are not cooking. The other thing we do is crack the kitchen window and bring our vornado into the kitchen. This helps circulate the air and gets the smoke out quickly. Hope this helps!

Gang, please take STLcolleen's advice and just get the right detectors for your kitchen area... you gotta go "photoelectric", they're only like 25 bucks (the others are like 9 bucks).

We *FINALLY* did this a few weeks ago, and let me tell you the results are exactly what's needed.

- Before we couldn't even turn on the broiler element of our stove w/o it going off.

- Last night, we broiled a few steaks... zero problems.

Please, PLEASE do not tamper/disable your smoke detectors folks... all it takes is a drunken evening over wine etc and then your whole apartment building is affected.

My smoke alarm is on the ceiling 20 feet up, so there's nothing I can do if it goes off.

My parents new house's kitchen actually has heat detectors in the kitchen. So in the event something smokes up, nothing happens. I guess its bad if their kitchen ever catches fire. Mingt take a bit of burning before it sensed and went off, but if you do enough of the right kind of cooking its SO annoying hearing the beep.

My new apartment has the most overly sensitive smoke detectors in every room and if I'm even toasting a bagel the stupid thing goes off and its wired to make all the others go off. They have since been unplugged from the walls.

I have a ceiling fan in my kitchen that I turn on whenever I turn the oven to higher than 450. Otherwise I would recommend keeping the oven clean (a roast chicken spatters so much grease-- it can cause smoking for a long time afterward). I'm totally looking into the photoelectric detectors, especially since I hate the way the ceiling fan in the kitchen looks. I will grab a magazine and fan it if it goes off, but so annoying. It makes me feel like the quintessential incompetent cook when really I'm just cooking my food correctly (i.e. searing and broiling).

I have this problem too, and have been thinking about replacing my over-the-stove microwave with its crappy vent with a proper hood. However, the way my townhouse is set up, there's really no way for me to vent the hood to the outside. The Faber hoods, however, can be setup for internal recirculation, using charcoal filters to trap out smoke. Has anyone had experience with a proper vent hood setup for recirculation? Does it work?

@farmersdaughter, at the point when you're (presumably) standing on a ladder or chair with a shower cap and rubber band in hand, wouldn't it be easier to just take out the batteries when you begin to cook and then put them back in when you're done?

@akay, ours seems to be wired into the house electrical system. There is a battery in it but it's just a backup. I figured this out when I tried removing the battery but noticed that it didn't stop the alarm. I will ask our electrician to replace it with a photoelectric detector, as I agree that it's much safer than my method. Although I am a very careful person and have not yet forgotten to remove the plastic, I can see how that would happen!

@akay depends upon farmersdaughter's height and the height of her ceilings. Our ceilings are 8 foot. My husband is 6'4, I'm 5'9. We can both reach the smoke detector with two hands.

The one thing that concerns me about most of these options is that smoke can still get in and that will actually increase the sensitivity of the smoke detector. I would suggest getting the right detector, because if you're always clearly the smoke out, then eventually there will be a buildup and it will continue to go off over little things.

they sell plastic covers for literally pennies which are used for when you paint, you could always throw one on when you know your going to do some messy cooking

mine has a button on it that will disable the thing for a few minutes. though it will still chirp intermittently, i guess to remind you that it has been disabled temporarily.

I got tired of taking mine off the wall and pulling the battery every time I bake. Now I just leave the smoke detector sitting on top of the refrigerator and I carry it into the living room when I bake. This way it doesn't go off just because the oven's on, but if something really did catch fire, it would still go off in the living room (which is next to the kitchen). Also, this way I don't have to remember to put the battery back into it.

Mine is on AC power, so I can just flip the breaker switch...if I hadn't already disabled it! I'm sure I'll be featured on the news at 11.

STLcolleen & joetech, thanks for pointing out photoelectric smoke alarms! I didn't even know about them and just set off our alarm last night searing chicken thighs. We'll be shopping around for a new alarm this weekend.

I just push the button to disable mine when it goes off. That's a moot point though, now that the parrot is mimicking the noise we get to hear it all the time!

You all know this, but you really should have a working smoke detector in your home at all times! Tisk tisk!

Tisk-tisking aside, I've searched out some solutions. For those of you who disable an alarm because it is too high to reach and turn off a nuisance alarm, I found a smoke detector that comes with a remote:

http://www.smarthome.com/7981/Remote-Controlled-Smoke-Fire-Alarm-SA302CN/p.aspx

For $26 you get a photoelectric smoke detector that allows you to use your regular old TV remote to silence if you get a nuisance alarm. Yay!

It looks straight out of Star Wars and costs $55, but Jacob Jensen's smoke detector has a handy little button that allows you to put it on a ten-minute break if you know you're going to get smoke (like EVERY time I use the broiler....).

Also, you should make sure your detector is properly located. It shouldn't be IN the kitchen, it should be in a hallway adjacent or a nearby living area. You need a smoke detector in hallways longer than 4', or just outside a bedroom door.

I hope that helps. Good luck!

Tara

Mine's hooked up to the electric and is extremely sensitive-- every time I turn the oven on it goes off-- so the shower cap goes on whenever I bake. Works great.

One of my previous apartments had a super sensitive alarm that was wired in, so I ended up using a barely damp kitchen towel draped on it. It worked for me, even with the thing going full blast.

I have a hardwired smoke detector on my kitchen ceiling (thanks landlord!) that invariably goes off whenever I cook anything with any enthusiasm, like a nice steak. I now put a floor fan between it and the stove, blowing toward the stove, and it has kept it from going off so far.

We really have to find ways on how to maintain a well-functioning alarm system so that they will be of use during actual emergencies. It would be best to get acquainted on basic information about our home alarm systems so that we can identify what is wrong right away.
http://www.wirelesssecuritynow.com

The new system in my house is linked together. So if the one in the kitchen starts, the one on the other side of the master bedroom door starts (it's off the kitchen -gotta love a shotgun), and so do the ones in the living room. I have my husband on watch ready to turn it off. The one one who consitently freaks out is our dog. If we even look at the smoke detector now he starts barking!