I doubt that... It's an alarm for the occupants, not a cause of the fire 
(unless the mod does CAUSE the fire). If that were the case, then a dead 
battery in a smoke alarm would trigger the same invalidation. IF it were a 
rental or such, then there may be liability for injury if they didn't go off 
and warn the renters to get out. A non-functioning alarm neither causes a fire 
nor prevents it.

Again, if this generality were true, then a broken one (if later analysis even 
tries to ascertain that) would be a similar case, as would be taking it out and 
having a fire while buying a replacement. There would also have to be proof 
that the modified alarm didn't work as well. All these are irrelevant to the 
existence of the fire in the first place, unless the thing caused it. Without 
someone saying "we never heard the smoke alarm" and then were injured by the 
delay in getting out, it would never even come up I suspect.



Marc Nicholas wrote:
> Of course, any tinkering you do likely automatically invalidates your
> building insurance policy upon a fire-related claim :)
> 
> -marc
> 
> On 11/29/09, YES NOPE9 <yes@nope9.com> wrote:
> 
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist