Smoke alarm - fixed to comply with building regs

[plugwash]

you can get tags for some breakers that make it so you cannot turn the breaker off, they still trip if needed..

of course they also mean unless you have the key for the tag you can't reset them either.

so in a household situation the householder would have to have they key and therefore be able to turn off the smoke alarms if they want.

not much point imo unless you have small mischevious kids and in that case i think you'd do better to restrict access to the CU as a whole rather than one breaker.

 

[Chri5]

From what I remember there's a metre rule.

Due to sensitivity of smoke detectors you should have then a distance away from light fittings, esp any with fluorescent starters.

Is that BS or correct

 

[stevesey]

If you have a burgular alarm - how about fitting 12V smoke alarms wired to that. Our are wired into the anti-tamper circuit.

No chance of being in a different room and not hearing it go off.

Have to be careful about location though - don't want the whole neighbourhood knowing when you burn the toast.

 

[breezer]

If you have a burgular alarm - how about fitting 12V smoke alarms wired to that. Our are wired into the anti-tamper circuit.

1) Will not comply with building regs

2) should be on own alarm cct, not tamper cct

3) see 1 above and read post title

 

[bernardgreen]

If you have a burgular alarm - how about fitting 12V smoke alarms wired to that. Our are wired into the anti-tamper circuit.

What do you do when it goes off ? Do you react for fire ( exit as quickly as possible ) or for intruders ( lockselves into rooms to defer personal attack and call police )

No chance of being in a different room and not hearing it go off.

Can you really hear your burglar alarm over the TV

Have to be careful about location though - don't want the whole neighbourhood knowing when you burn the toast.

Use a heat detector in the kitchen and close the door when cooking.

Link heat detector to smoke detectors. Fit smoke detectors as necessary to be heard through doors over the sound of TV's in bedrooms. ( or auxillery sounders.

 

[breezer]

while i agree to a point, that is not required since you are now getting into the realms of fire alarms (ambient sound level) which a smoke detector is not a fire alarm

 

[bernardgreen]

What point is there fitting a smoke alarm if it doesn't wake you up when necessary.

Some people sleep so deeply an axillary sounder in their bed room is essential.

A key holder and a police office are clattering around in a house to try and shoo out a bird that set the alarm off only discover on the all room check that the family are asleep upstairs oblivious to the alarm sounding and the commotion downstairs. What use a smoke alarm in that case.

 

[dingbat]

I wouldn't have a smoke alarm in my house...

...let's face it, the damned thing would wake you up, wouldn't it?

 

[breezer]

What point is there fitting a smoke alarm if it doesn't wake you up when necessary.

Believe it or not it doesnt have to.

smoke alarms as such are just to give an audable indication of smoke.

A fire alarm is to help with the preservation of life. In order to do this there has to be an audable sound level of what ever it is at the head of each bed in a sleeping area with all doors closed.
If this means an extra sounder in that room then so be it.
It also has to be able to operate should ther be a fire so FP200 is used or pyro.

A lot of people do not realise the difference.

even more people do not read the wiki

 

[karatedragon]

This is a really easy job. The link in the earlier post to TLC shows the Kidde Slick alarms. These are the ones I chose. Not cheap mind. They were installed in a matter of an afternoon. 6 Smoke alarms including a heat alarm and an alarm in the loft. All interlinked and also as part of the set you can get a Carbon Monoxide Alarm that is interlinked to the system by Kidde and it gives a read out on a display of the CO levels in the room.

The kidde alarms I chose have the 10 year battery back up in case of power failure.

You need to wire these alarms in 1mm 3 core and earth to a separate fuseway or MCB. I used a 6amp MCB in my Proteus box and not under any RCD protection. The instructions say not to wire via an RCD.

This was in fact a really easy DIY job.

 

[stevesey]

If you have a burgular alarm - how about fitting 12V smoke alarms wired to that. Our are wired into the anti-tamper circuit.

What do you do when it goes off ? Do you react for fire ( exit as quickly as possible ) or for intruders ( lockselves into rooms to defer personal attack and call police )

No chance of being in a different room and not hearing it go off.

Can you really hear your burglar alarm over the TV

Have to be careful about location though - don't want the whole neighbourhood knowing when you burn the toast.

Use a heat detector in the kitchen and close the door when cooking.
Link heat detector to smoke detectors. Fit smoke detectors as necessary to be heard through doors over the sound of TV's in bedrooms. ( or auxillery sounders.

We only set the alarm when out of the house (couldn't get used to resetting it when half awake in the morning ). So if it did go off we'd assume fire (panel would tell us anyway as it's the only thing wired to the panic button "zone"). If we were out neighbours (hopefully) would investigate and see either smoke or signs of entry. The type we have still have their own sounders, so if it does go off we have the sounder, the bell box and the panel going off, pretty good chance of hearing it!

Actually the only time (other than test) when it had gone off is when I was soldering some pipework right underneath it! Couldn't stop so had to carry on whilst others, breifly paniced and then realised what I'd done.

Yes its not a full fire alarm system - the main benefit I think, is that it alerts the neighbours if the case of a fire when you are out.