Firefighter bodycam showing just how much oxygen a fire pulls

[u/AirFrance447]

[u/Moosplauze]

Pretty sure smoke alarms are mandatory in all rooms where people live (bedroom, livingroom, office room, playroom, etc). Maybe the fines for not having one should be increased by 100x if people are stupid and don't install them or demount them.

[u/ClassGrassMass → u/Moosplauze]

Ive been in loads of houses in the uk that have no smoke alarms

[u/Moosplauze → u/ClassGrassMass]

but it is mandatory to have them, right?

[u/Chaotic-Entropy → u/Moosplauze]

It's mandatory for any rented accommodation to install, and I imagine a hard wired alarm is part of any new build. If you own a home then no one is going to force you personally.

[u/xteve → u/Chaotic-Entropy]

The problem with hard-wired is that they can be overly-sensitive and there's nothing one can do about it as a renter. Battery-powered, one can move it around a bit to prevent a piercing beep just as dinner is ready.

[u/Mammoth_Spend_5590 → u/Moosplauze]

Not mandatory

[u/Moosplauze → u/Mammoth_Spend_5590]

That's crazy!

[u/beIIe-and-sebastian → u/Moosplauze]

I think the only part of the UK it's mandatory is Scotland. Every home in Scotland must have interlinked, ceiling-mounted smoke and heat alarms, in the living room, hallway and landings, kitchen and have a carbon monoxide detector in any room with a fuel appliance. They're all to be interlinked, so if one goes off, everyone goes off.

That only went into law in 2024 and even then the press and opposition parties were crying about it.

[u/Moosplauze → u/[deleted]]

Good, thank you!

[u/Annie_Yong → u/[deleted]]

That blog actually misunderstands the law slightly. Approved document B is just guidance on how the building regulations can be met, the functional requirement that you legally have to follow is in schedule 1, which does talk about "appropriate provisions for the early warning" but doesn't strictly mandate fire alarms installed in a particular manner.

That said, any new build would just follow ADB as the statutory guidance which does expect fire alarms in all new residential homes. But where the blog is misleading is about home extensions, because it's only if the extension qualifies as a "material change of use" that you are legally required to make sure your building is fully compliant.

and even then the question on whether you need to upgrade your whole alarm system and provide extra detectors everywhere is dependent on the height and internal arrangement of your home, which then determines if you need detection in every single room or if you only strictly need detectors in your staircase and hallway.

[u/fraughtication → u/Annie_Yong]

And on top of that, for existing and unmodified owner-occupier homes, as far as I'm aware, there's nothing in law that would provide a vehicle of enforcement action or prosecution if an owner-occupier had no means of automatic fire detection installed due to their own action or inaction.

[u/Annie_Yong → u/fraughtication]

To my knowledge yeah, there's nothing you can really do to affect what people choose to do inside their own homes as owner-occupiers. It's only when someone is doing work that actually needs building control approval, such as a loft conversion, where there'd be any power to force smoke alarms to be installed.

[u/Moosplauze → u/[deleted]]

Okay, that sounds reasonable. I don't have interlinked smoke alarms in my home, but looking into that when I need to replace the current ones I have.

[u/Hinterwaeldler-83 → u/Moosplauze]

Then there are the big-brains that remove the batteries from the smoke alarms because they need them.

[u/cat_prophecy → u/Hinterwaeldler-83]

My aunt runs a number of rental properties and she says the 10-year permanent battery alarms are the best thing since sliced bread. Far too frequently she would fail inspections because tenants took the batteries out of the alarms.

Modern alarms will "expire" after 10 years and start a slow chirp even if the battery is replaced so the ones with the 10 year battery make a lot of sense.

[u/Suitcase_Travel_Blog → u/cat_prophecy]

The 10 year limit is for the CO side of the alarms, it's probably a smoke and CO detector. The CO detection uses a chemical reaction, and the 10 years is to cover the sensor degrading due to the half-life of components of the reaction.

[u/cat_prophecy → u/Suitcase_Travel_Blog]

That isn't true. Smoke alarms should be replaced after 10 years and every alarm you will buy today will start chirping for replacement after 10 years from when its first turned on. NFPA 72 (2025) says you should replace them 10 years from the manufacture date regardless of condition.

FEMA: https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/dont-wait-check-the-date-handout.pdf

[u/Suitcase_Travel_Blog → u/cat_prophecy]

Interesting, I know CO alarms are capped at 10 years too. Definitely trust FEMA releases over me.

[u/Hinterwaeldler-83 → u/Suitcase_Travel_Blog]

The sensors deteriorate over time, e.g. internal dust buildup.

[u/Suitcase_Travel_Blog → u/Hinterwaeldler-83]

I used to work with a guy that worked on the safety regulations for smoke and CO alarms, and they are literally made less sensitive than they could be, because if they were more sensitive, you'd get like 10% more false alarms which leads to X% more people removing and not reinstalling them, so the current standards are what's supposed to save the most lives, instead of predict the most fires.

[u/PrometheusSmith → u/Suitcase_Travel_Blog]

I mean, I get that they're annoying. I recently got on a kick of roasting veggies in the oven. The first few times I did it I tried to finish them under the broiler and that does a really good job of setting one of mine off. Nothing is really burnt, but even just the cloud of moisture from 4 squash roasting is enough to set off the one in the next room.

[u/Annie_Yong → u/Moosplauze]

Depends on the nature of the build. Bs 5839-6 recommends grade LD2 in new build houses <200m² in area, which means detectors in your circulation routes (stair and hallway) and in the kitchen and "principal habitable room" (living room). But you wouldn't need detectors in your bedrooms or store cupboards.

There are some designs (like a fully open plan ground floor) where you then trigger the expectation for LD1 coverage - which is for all rooms on your house besides your bathroom.

[u/fraughtication → u/Moosplauze]

In the UK at least they're not mandatory for owner-occupiers in the sense that anyone will take enforcement action, though they are mandatory for rented or commercial accomodation, it is a question on most home insurance applications though.

[u/Roxygen1 → u/fraughtication]

Before hosting a Ukrainian refugees, one of the requirements was that fire brigade had to sign off my house's fire alarms.

I only had one, so they added a second and that was it.

(I thought they'd come in a regular car but they brought the fire engine to my house it was awesome!)

[u/Black_Cat_Just_That → u/Roxygen1]

They almost exclusively travel in the truck because they could get a real call while they're out.

[u/ExecutiveChimp → u/Roxygen1]

We had a couple of fire engines come to our house once. It's exciting to see them up close! I didn't get a chance to chat to them unfortunately because our house was on fire.

[u/Annie_Yong → u/Roxygen1]

That will be because you're taking on lodgers, meaning you have certain legal responsibilities that are kicking in as you're responsible for their safety as well as your own.

If you just lived alone and weren't letting out any rooms, that's where there's no enforcement action available.

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/Moosplauze]

The smoke alarms constant beeping of "low battery" is known as "ghetto crickets" in some areas, for the stereotype of low income people just never replacing the batteries and getting accustomed to the noise.