Consumer board - separate out the alarms?

[dpm_dpmartin]

In previous houses I've had I think that any burglar alarm and wired smoke alarms have always been on different MCBs at the consumer board. I had always thought this made sense and I'd assumed that it was some kind of legislation that had been followed.

I was looking at the consumer board in my current (relatively new) place just the other day and I noticed that the burglar alarm and smoke alarms were on the same B6 MCB. Flicking it proved, sure enough, the smoke alarms and the burglar alarm lost power.

Is that acceptable practice?

 

[JohnW2]

I was looking at the consumer board in my current (relatively new) place just the other day and I noticed that the burglar alarm and smoke alarms were on the same B6 MCB. Flicking it proved, sure enough, the smoke alarms and the burglar alarm lost power.

I think you'll find that it's a fairly widely-held view that it's best to have alarm(s) supplied from a regularly-used lighting circuit, so that failure of power to the alarm(s) would be rapidly noticed.

Kind Regards, John

 

[dpm_dpmartin]

Thank you. I am completely unaware. I know - for sure - in my last house the smoke alarms (across 3 floors) had a distinct MCB, as did the burglar alarm.

This house is laid out much the same - smoke alarms across 3 floors - but it is set up differently at the consumer board... and, I thought, incorrectly. The real question is - does it matter?

Is the wisdom that I just leave well enough alone, or do something about it?

 

[AndyPRK]

PERSONALLY I like the smoke and burglar alarm on the same MCB.

If the MCB trips you will know about it from the burglar alarm.

Can't see the point in wasting 2 MCB's on them unless you have lots of spare ways

 

[JohnW2]

FWIW, I personally also agree with that - although, as I hinted, I'd probably be even happier if they were not only both on the same MCB, but also on a lighting circuit.

Kind Regards, John

 

[EFLImpudence]

If not -

It would be extremely unfortunate for the house to catch fire and be burgled on the very day someone had mistakenly switched off two MCBs and the loss of power back-up had failed.

 

[AndyPRK]

FWIW, I personally also agree with that - although, as I hinted, I'd probably be even happier if they were not only both on the same MCB, but also on a lighting circuit.

Kind Regards, John

Although if you only have alarms on 1 MCB, hopefully its very unlikely that, that circuit will be off for a failure

 

[dpm_dpmartin]

Cool. It seems like what I'm hearing is that there's no legislation out there that says this shouldn't be like this. Although it may not be preferred, it's not a safety or security issue that I really need to be that bothered about, and certainly not something that I need to pro-actively remediate.

Thank you!

 

[JohnW2]

Although if you only have alarms on 1 MCB, hopefully its very unlikely that, that circuit will be off for a failure

Obviously true - but still not impossible.

Kind Regards, John

 

[unclebob1]

would it be possible to install a Non-maintained emergency light from the fire alarm mcb? That way the emergency light would come on if the breaker for fire alarm tripped/was turned off?

 

[AndyPRK]

If you have a burglar alarm, it will tell you the MCB has tripped by :

1) LED indicator on panel
2) Alarm going off after a while when the battery is flat
3) Not being able to set it. (I must get round to changing that setting on mine!)

 

[JohnW2]

would it be possible to install a Non-maintained emergency light from the fire alarm mcb? That way the emergency light would come on if the breaker for fire alarm tripped/was turned off?

Sure - or, indeed, any other flavour of 'power failure alarm'. However, as has been mentioned, burglar alarms often have such functionality built into them. Even battery-backed-up smoke/heat alarms often bleep if they loose mains power.

Kind Regards, John