Dumb question. Can the plaster ears on electrical wall outlets rest against the paneling. This would solve my recessed outlet problem. With the ears pressed against the paneling, i would gain the 3/8 inch i need to make outlets flush.

I live in an apartment over a garage. The apartment has a completely enclosed stairwell which is not heated and has lighter insulation than my apartment. I live in New Hampshire and in winter the stairwell gets quite cold. Two wired smoke/carbon monoxide detectors were placed in the ceiling at the top and bottom of the stairwell. These both have battery backups. During the winter, every winter, the alarms start to beep all the time. I have researched this and found that the installed batteries will drain very quickly in the cold, causing them to fail and start beeping to be replaced. Apparently, cold is only good for sustaining battery life if they're not installed in something. So, about every December, my alarms in the stairwell start beeping. The two inside my apartment don't beep - all are hard-wired. In the beginning, every winter, I would replace the batteries often. This is difficult since I need an extension ladder to access the downstairs one which is probably at least 10 feet high if not higher, and it's also at a very awkward angle, making it a pretty dangerous endeavor. This year, I got tired of this and simply removed both smoke detectors and planned on putting them back up in spring. They don't beep during the warmer parts of the year. I can find link after link online about the batteries in the detectors having the cold/beeping problem, but no information on if the same thing would happen to the detectors without batteries in them. If they don't have this problem, then I will put them back up without batteries. I should have tested this already, but winter is over now, so it's too late. Of course, you're not supposed to use the detectors without a battery backup. :wall: So, does anybody know if the detectors themselves are supposed to beep in the cold? Oh yeah, I forgot, one time I switched the inside detectors with the stairwell ones - same thing happened. It's not the units, it's the cold! Nobody believes me that the cold is the problem either. By the way, I simply left the plug that goes into the detectors loose inside the ceiling fixture it was in during the winter. Since there was an actual plug on the end of the wires, I didn't think it was any different than having a power strip with unused, hot receptacles, or an unused outlet, and therefore not dangerous. I'm now wondering if I might be wrong about that? Here's three pictures of an outlet, a power strip plugged into an outlet, and the way I have left the plugs in the electrical boxes/containers/things in the ceiling. Are they different, and, if so, how? Thanks to anybody who can help.