[Rbrown]

With the new legislation coming into Scotland in February, I am looking at interlinked smoke and heat sensors. Guidance below….

https://www.gov.scot/publications/fi...cottish-homes/

The Aico alarms have been recommended. Before I pay the £60 per sensor (I need 6 of them) - just wondering if anyone has an experience or advice on this area?

Many thanks

[Pentland]

Originally Posted by Rbrown

With the new legislation coming into Scotland in February, I am looking at interlinked smoke and heat sensors. Guidance below….

https://www.gov.scot/publications/fi...cottish-homes/

The Aico alarms have been recommended. Before I pay the £60 per sensor (I need 6 of them) - just wondering if anyone has an experience or advice on this area?

Many thanks

Did mine last year before the incompetents changed their mind (as usual) and moved the date.


Looked at the Aico but chose FireAngel.

The alarms need replaced every 10 years anyway as it’s the sensors that apparently degrade. Wanted battery ones in case you have a power cut or fault with the wires. Also wanted interlinked heat and CO detectors in the same system / range.

All works well, has an app so you can tell if your house is on fire when your on holiday. Lol.

Why do you need 6 btw?

[Rbrown]

Originally Posted by Pentland

Did mine last year before the incompetents changed their mind (as usual) and moved the date.


Looked at the Aico but chose FireAngel.

The alarms need replaced every 10 years anyway as it's the sensors that apparently degrade. Wanted battery ones in case you have a power cut or fault with the wires. Also wanted interlinked heat and CO detectors in the same system / range.

All works well, has an app so you can tell if your house is on fire when your on holiday. Lol.

Why do you need 6 btw?

Thanks. That's really helpful.

My house is a bit big. Was thinking:

1x heat sensor in kitchen
1x downstairs hall
1x upstairs hall

This is where it gets complicated…

1 x in "granny annexe" (which will never be used as such as home office now)
1 x 2 sitting rooms - but could just do 1.

I have a pal who is a firefighter and actually said we needed more!!!

How many did you get?

[Pentland]

Originally Posted by Rbrown

Thanks. That's really helpful.

My house is a bit big. Was thinking:

1x heat sensor in kitchen
1x downstairs hall
1x upstairs hall

This is where it gets complicated…

1 x in "granny annexe" (which will never be used as such as home office now)
1 x 2 sitting rooms - but could just do 1.

I have a pal who is a firefighter and actually said we needed more!!!

How many did you get?

My son in law is a fire fighter also!

I got
1x heat sensor in kitchen
1x downstairs hall
1x upstairs hall
1x lounge
1 CO in the lounge where we have gas fire
1 CO in attic, where the boiler is.

You are correct just the 1 primary “living room” is needed but I don’t think you’d need to do your annex as well or “need” more. That said, better safe than sorry.

[Rbrown]

Originally Posted by Pentland

My son in law is a fire fighter also!

I got
1x heat sensor in kitchen
1x downstairs hall
1x upstairs hall
1x lounge
1 CO in the lounge where we have gas fire
1 CO in attic, where the boiler is.

You are correct just the 1 primary “living room” is needed but I don’t think you’d need to do your annex as well or “need” more. That said, better safe than sorry.

Thanks. That's helpful.

Our boiler is in the garage and no gas fires so no CO monitors in the house.

Somebody somewhere will be making money from this new legislation!!!!

[HighlandPete]

I fitted the Fire Angel 'linked' battery units, back in the Spring. Appear to be working fine.

3 smoke, (main hallway, upstairs landing, living area). 1 heat and 1 carbon monoxide, (kitchen).

I've had a fire inspection since fitting, due to our scheme having an issue with fire engine access, (long story) and they approved of the setup.

[Tengocity]

I didn't know about this. Have added it to my spreadsheet of things to sort/buy for our new house. If the house move ever actually happens that is. Seems a sensible thing to do if you're going to have a fire alarm at all.

[JustChris]

Interesting the regional variations now.

New build in Wales has to have domestic sprinkler as I think I posted in another thread. I hope this is the last time I ever see these orange pipes. It's quite an impressive system actually and after some initial fears, very happy it's there.

Obligatory pic from a random build visit.

Good luck kitting the house out RB. Well worth it.

[Blacktemplar]

And who will be checking that homes are compliant? Only relevant when coming to sell I suspect...

I have (unlinked) fire alarms in every bedroom, on both landings and a CO2 alarm in the living room where we have an open fire. All have long life batteries and low battery alarms. So what am I missing...?

[HighlandPete]

Originally Posted by Blacktemplar

And who will be checking that homes are compliant? Only relevant when coming to sell I suspect...

I have (unlinked) fire alarms in every bedroom, on both landings and a CO2 alarm in the living room where we have an open fire. All have long life batteries and low battery alarms. So what am I missing...?

You will need either a wired system to link the alarms, or 10-year sealed battery alarms, which are 'wi-fi' linked. They must all go off together, if one is triggered.

[Pentland]

Originally Posted by Blacktemplar

And who will be checking that homes are compliant? Only relevant when coming to sell I suspect...

I have (unlinked) fire alarms in every bedroom, on both landings and a CO2 alarm in the living room where we have an open fire. All have long life batteries and low battery alarms. So what am I missing...?

Originally Posted by HighlandPete

You will need either a wired system to link the alarms, or 10-year sealed battery alarms, which are 'wi-fi' linked. They must all go off together, if one is triggered.

You also need a smoke detector in the most used public room and a heat alarm in the kitchen.

[KRS_SN]

Having read the gov.scot link on grenfell I'm still not clear based on the sparse information there on why this should apply to our homes as it not cladding that was the cause of the terrible tragedy in grenfell?
So going ahead would all fire alarms in all flats bleep in a multistorey high rise if someone burns a toast in one?

[Pentland]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

Having read the gov.scot link on grenfell I'm still not clear based on the sparse information there on why this should apply to our homes as it not cladding that was the cause of the terrible tragedy in grenfell?
So going ahead would all fire alarms in all flats bleep in a multistorey high rise if someone burns a toast in one?

I would expect each flats need to comply and being it’s own contained unit only one flat would alarm if there was a faux pas with the toast.

You don’t expect the governing incompetents to provide reasoned, detailed explanations for their actions do you. M

[KRS_SN]

Originally Posted by Pentland

I would expect each flats need to comply and being it's own contained unit only one flat would alarm if there was a faux pas with the toast.

You don't expect the governing incompetents to provide reasoned, detailed explanations for their actions do you. M

I hope so..if I lived in a multistorey and my alarm went off willy nilly I'll disable it.
I'm wary that such well intentioed measures
a. cause more harm as more people may take the batteries out and
b. help the government wash their hands off if a tragedy were to occur.
c. insurers refuse to pay out when someones house goes on fire
Need more detail.

[Pentland]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

I hope so..if I lived in a multistorey and my alarm went off willy nilly I'll disable it.
I'm wary that such well intentioed measures
a. cause more harm as more people may take the batteries out and
b. help the government wash their hands off if a tragedy were to occur.
c. insurers refuse to pay out when someones house goes on fire
Need more detail.

Quality detectors don’t false alarm - at least the ones I have haven’t triggered with toast or an open oven.
You can’t take the batteries out. Compliant alarms are either sealed battery or mains wired.

As for b, hahhahahaha. You know who our government are, what there members have done, and that they are still in power.
As for c, if it’s a legal requirement to have functioning detectors, I see no reason not to comply or if they make it a condition of insurance, be uninsured if you don’t.

[Blacktemplar]

Unless & until it's made a condition of insurance there will be a lot of people who won't be shelling out hundreds for an alarm system and will make do with what they have (if anything).

Over £400 for me, not a biggie but for some people on low incomes even a basic kit will be at least £250 and that's not going to be about as welcome as a fart in a lift...

[AlanQS]

I got a couple of linked Fire Angel smoke alarms quite a few years ago. It was easy enough to link them but after a year or so, one became faulty and would beep randomly in the middle of the night so I scrapped them. (They sat in the garage for about four months beeping away at random times.) To save more holes in the ceiling, I replaced them with non linked Fire Angel alarms as they fitted the bracket already in place and, four years on, no problems with them.

The Fire angel units look quite smart but, I've been put off them as interlinked units.

The Aico units have, in the past, been considered to be a higher quality alarm but I don't know if it applied to all models at the time, nor if the reputation still exists.

As far as I can see, the "enforcement" will simply be down to the insurance company getting an excuse to refuse a fire damage claim.

Note that, with some makes, the wireless interlinking is built in but with other makes, you have to buy a connecting module for each alarm.

[moonshine]

ive fire angel interlinked alarms - I got them as Mrs Moonshine is deaf and can't hear the fire alarms / burglar alarms and they used to do pairing to vibrating bed pad and strobe and a low frequency sounder.

I had problems with the vibrating Pad and strobe losing its pairing from the rest and it issues an irritating warning chirp - Mrs Moonshine can't hear that - but I can and it kept waking me - so I binned the Bed pad and strobe and we rely off the Low frequency sounder - its loud!!!

other than that I've hadno problems with them (the LF sounder very occasionally indicates a dropped link in the network by means of a flashing error light, but this seems to resolve itself quickly) and I fitted all the additional ones as per Scottish regs last year before the reg implementation was postponed - but not worried about it - its a good idea.

My Burglar Alarm bod fits interlinked alarms too - he doesn't use fire angel tho as they can be a but temperamental pairing and he wants reliability and not have to do repeat house calls to fix dropped pairings.

[Pentland]

Originally Posted by Blacktemplar

Unless & until it's made a condition of insurance there will be a lot of people who won't be shelling out hundreds for an alarm system and will make do with what they have (if anything).

Over £400 for me, not a biggie but for some people on low incomes even a basic kit will be at least £250 and that's not going to be about as welcome as a fart in a lift...

Quite agree.

It may not be insurance that pushes the point but being part of the building regs, if you don’t have an interlinked system, it will be a contention when selling your house.

As I alluded to before, you don’t really expect our illustrious leaders to have fully thought this through do you?
They will probably solve the funding issue by providing a grant, subsidy or benefit - sourced from WM naturally.