extension & smoke/heat alarms

[linred]

Good morning. I wonder if anyone can help me. We are currently having a single storey extension to house a downstairs toilet. We have been told by our builder that we will 'have' to have wired smoke and heat alarms in other rooms as well as the new extension. We were wondering if we would be breaking the law by not having these alarms in the rest of the house as we currently have a battery alarm at the bottom of the stairs. Many thanks

 

[Dan007]

Hi and welcome to the forum. There is a lot of knowledgable people on here that can probably tell you exactly what building regulations you need to comply with when it comes to fitting smoke alarms so don't worry. In the mean time have a look here www.aico.co.uk/what-do-i-fit.html

This may clear a few things up.

Good luck

 

[Manator]

Your builder is correct, in fact building control will not sign off your extension if they are not fitted. Today you may find them as an extra burden on your finances, in the future you may find them worth the weight of your builder plus his fully loaded van, in gold.

Its a fact that smoke alarms save lives, and the hard wired ones are the best of the available, battery operated types are good providing the batteries are changed and the detector is tested on a regular basis. Battery types are not allowed if any type of construction is being undertaken.

 

[linred]

many thanks for replies. The quote came in much more expensive then expected and we wondered if perhaps we were being asked to pay for somehting not strictly necessary. thanks again Lin

 

[ProDave]

Fitting a mains powered smoke alarm is quite easy and not expensive.

The bit that makes it a lot more work, is having to install the cabling to interlink them.

A cheaper alternative might be mains powered smoke alarms using RF bases to interlink them without the upheaval of hard wired cabling. I know BC up here have accepted that before.

Speak to your BC inspector and see if he will accept those.

Is the extension "just" a downstairs WC?

 

[lkayelectrical]

many thanks for replies. The quote came in much more expensive then expected and we wondered if perhaps we were being asked to pay for somehting not strictly necessary. thanks again Lin

If you state how much we may be able to tell you roughly if it's the going rate

Laurence

 

[wozz]

I dont think the OP is questioning having a smoke in the extension its the cost of having them in the existing building they are questioning.

 

[Doc Hudson]

Good morning. I wonder if anyone can help me. We are currently having a single storey extension to house a downstairs toilet. We have been told by our builder that we will 'have' to have wired smoke and heat alarms in other rooms as well as the new extension. We were wondering if we would be breaking the law by not having these alarms in the rest of the house as we currently have a battery alarm at the bottom of the stairs. Many thanks

I did not think that the regulations were retrospective and was not aware of any requirement to have to install items in the original property as well. Unless there has been a change of regulations, even with a complete new build there was no requirement for every room to have individual alarms. It used to be withing so many meters of bedrooms, rooms containing heating appliances involving a combustion process, fires, log burners etc, not radiators.I would ring your local council building control they will confirm exactly what is needed, as they will be the people who have to sign the job off.

Doc H.

 

[Badfish]

I have only once been asked by building control to install smoke alarms through the rest of the property.Usually just fit them in the extension.

 

[ProDave]

I have only once been asked by building control to install smoke alarms through the rest of the property.Usually just fit them in the extension.

And as I said before, on a loft conversion I did, BC accepted RF bases to link smoke alarms on different levels to save having to rip up the existing laminate flooring to lay hard wiring to interlink them.