Smoke alarm positioning in a House.

[adonoghue1985]

Hi all, my first post.

Currently training to a qualified sparky.

When positioning your mains powered smoke alarms in a semi detached house with a garage. Where is the most ideal place to put them? Is there a certain distance to each door for example?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[sellers]

not sure on the exact regs of it, but minimum 1 in hall, 1 in landing. Better practice 1 in kitchen and maybe 1 in garage.

 

[m4tty]

If you go on the link below, scroll down to handybook. It's aico's website and the book will be a great help to you.

http://aico.eielectronics.com/news.html

cheers

---------- AUTO MERGE Post added at 22:28 ---------- Previous post was at 22:28 ----------

And btw it's free

 

[fletchflash]

think they have to be at least 600mm from a wall too. positioned where air would flow through the house which is normally hall and landing as said above. If you put a smoke alarm in kitchen its best to put an optical one to stop cooking from setting it off

 

[sparkytim]

300mm Min from walls, light fittings and Upstairs one in a house should be within 3 Mtrs of bedroom doors.

 

[Apache]

You're all silly. You put them on the ceiling

Welcome BTW

 

[batty]

I think a lot of you need to read the instructions. Garages are not good for smoke detectors and kitchens you put heat detectors.

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

+1..

in fact

+1

You will be wanting to refer to Approved document B

Fire safety..

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/BR_PDF_ADB_2000.pdf

around page 19 or 20ish onward will answer your questions..

The wiring regs BS7671

just covers the cable type, circuit protection etc.. of the supply to work the smoke detectors, not the positioning.

Guinness

 

[PC Electrics]

+2

Get yourselves the Handy Book and the Approved Document and settle down for some light bedtime reading.

Also read the instructions that come with the alarms.

Ask yourself this: what would you expect to happen if you put a smoke alarm in a kitchen?

 

[m4tty]

+2Get yourselves the Handy Book and the Approved Document and settle down for some light bedtime reading.

Also read the instructions that come with the alarms.

Ask yourself this: what would you expect to happen if you put a smoke alarm in a kitchen?

I'd expect the owner would disconnect it lol. As it would keep going off when cooking. Heat detectors used in this situation.

Question. As the optical heat detector ones are better are you allowed to fit these throughout the house or just in kitchen and smokes elsewhere. Cheers

 

[Manator]

I'd expect the owner would disconnect it lol. As it would keep going off when cooking. Heat detectors used in this situation.Question. As the optical heat detector ones are better are you allowed to fit these throughout the house or just in kitchen and smokes elsewhere. Cheers

Optical are better placed where the expected fire/smoke would be more smouldering, than fast flame low smoke areas, ionisation work better in low level smoke fast burning areas. An example of this would be like, say we have an office, the main office area can be covered by ionisation detectors, and the paper store can be covered by optical. As paper in bulk will smoulder for hours before a fast burn the optical can detect this. Heat should always be used where cooking or garages or other areas like boiler rooms and the like, but the correct heat sensing range should be selected.

 

[sparkytim]

Recommended mix in a house is Optical downstairs in hall way if near to kitchen (This allows you to Toast in peace), Ionisation upstairs on landing, Heat alarm in Kitchen and Lounge if going for BS 5839 Part 6 LD2 but Building Regs Part B accepts LD3, (Circulation spaces only i.e. Hall and landing in standard House 2 story House)

 

[kme]

+1 to tim

 

[sellers]

sorry I should have stated, smoke in hall and landing, heat in kitchen and garage. People keep a lot of flamable equipment in the garage.

 

[kme]

The other thing that can be worth considering in some circumstances, is the issues associated with dumping old smoke alarms.

The ionisation detectors have a miniscule amout of radioactive material - a single one can be chucked in general household rubbish; but more than one requires "specialist" refuse proceedures. Optical; or even multi-detector, are becoming much more prolific; especially since the cost of optical versus ionising is lower than it used to be.

KME