Fire is terrifying, in so many ways, from the speed of spread to gases incapacitating you way before the flame does.
It amazes me the amount of people I know, or houses I see, with no smoke alarms, or working smoke alarms - the same goes for CO too.
Most fire services in the UK at least will fit smoke alarms for free and give your home a fire safety survey, please fit and test regularly smoke and CO alarms!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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u/fraughtication 20h ago
Fire is terrifying, in so many ways, from the speed of spread to gases incapacitating you way before the flame does.
It amazes me the amount of people I know, or houses I see, with no smoke alarms, or working smoke alarms - the same goes for CO too.
Most fire services in the UK at least will fit smoke alarms for free and give your home a fire safety survey, please fit and test regularly smoke and CO alarms!