Smoke alarms, do you have them?

dimbo61

Fire safety is a huge issue and it's everyone's responsibility.
For less than £50 you can have a Fire Angel smoke alarm on each level, one in the living room, Heat alarm in the kitchen, CO alarm next to the gas boiler, gas hob/oven and gas fire. Fire blanket near the cooker.

Sotts

Squeaky9 said:

Sotts said:

We have hard wired in our new build.  One goes off, causes every other one to go off.
Strangely one is directly above the oven and it goes off whenever we open the oven door.  Even when there's no smoke.   Is that normal 

Is it also a heat alarm? I think most smoke alarms also recognise sudden temperature rises as well and that sets them off.

Had a heat alarm in the kitchen when I was renting, but the kitchen was so small and had no window so every time we opened the oven door the alarm (positioned right above it) went off. 

That makes sense. Thank you.  Cooking is a big issue.  It doesn't go off when we grill but I guess that's constant heat not the sudden heat when you open the oven 

Sotts

molerat said:

Sotts said:

We have hard wired in our new build.  One goes off, causes every other one to go off.
Strangely one is directly above the oven and it goes off whenever we open the oven door.  Even when there's no smoke.   Is that normal 

You should have a heat alarm in the kitchen and it should be roughly in the centre of the room. As they trigger at around 135 deg C they should not be above the oven because the rush of heat from opening the oven door is enough to trigger it. You need to speak to your builder about getting it moved.

I will do.  Although property was handed over from builder 2 years ago.  So looks like I'll have to pay to get it moved 

Sotts

Mickey666 said:

Yep. Smoke and heat alarms, about nine of them, all hardwired, including a central test/locate/silence switch.  Plus four separate CO alarms.

Ah where's the silence switch. Hubby could stand under it While i open the oven 

Thrugelmir

Does your house insurance require you to have them? 

iampetesmith

We've got wired ones fitted, a newer heat alarm in the kitchen and a couple of smoke alarms that are all linked. We had to change the two smoke alarms for new ones as I found they should have been replaced in 2013.

Murphybear

We live in an over 60s HA house and it has every alarm you can think of, tested once a week.

it doesn’t matter what people on here think you should get the alarms.  Many years ago I bought a little flat.  In my ignorance I didn’t know much about smoke alarms so didn’t have any.  I then lost my sense of smell due to nasal polyps.  One evening I was sitting in my lounge and realised there was a lot of smoke.  Entering the kitchen I had left the hob on with a saucepan.  I dealt with this, nothing seriously damaged but a lot of smoke everywhere.  Once I got it clean I got a smoke alarm and had my polyps removed and got my sense of smell back.

Things could have been a lot worse. 

As others have said the local fire station will help with advice and some will give you a smoke alarm.  Most important you get the right one for the kitchen.  It costs the Fire Brigade a lot less to help you with this than it does to put a fire out 

Jimmithecat

Yes all hard wired in and battery carbon monoxide for the log burner.
I do not understand why anyone would not have smoke detectors as they are so cheap and easy to test with the consequences of not doing this so life changing 

wolfehouse

Scotland has a new fire alarm law but Implementation was delayed because of covid.
all homes will need to have hard wired or linked alarms on each floor and room most used and heat alarm in kitchen. 

https://www.gov.scot/publications/fire-and-smoke-alarms-in-scottish-homes/

Ally_E.

Sotts said:

We have hard wired in our new build.  One goes off, causes every other one to go off.
Strangely one is directly above the oven and it goes off whenever we open the oven door.  Even when there's no smoke.   Is that normal 

Smoke alarms are not supposed to be in the kitchen, heat alarm is to be placed there instead to avoid exactly what is happening with your smoke alarm now. There will be smoke in the kitchen due to cooking.