How many fire alarms in a house

[diamond4u]

How many fire alarms should we have in a house. My parents house has a fire alarm in every single room in the house, hallways and the kitchen. However we've been told by my annoying bil that you only require 2 in the house, one in the downstairs hallway and one upstairs. How does that make sense. So if we have a fire at the back of our house, we will wait for that to reach the hallway til we are aware of it? Or what if there's a fire inside one of the closed rooms, it would take a long while for it to reach the hallway alarm

I say annoying bil because he thinks he's such a know it all, but I did google it and google seems to suggest the same 🙄

The sound study was carried out after the philpott murders.

I’m in social housing and after Grenfell they went into overdrive! I don’t even live in a block of flats. It’s a converted Victorian. Downstairs has the ground floor and I have the first and second floors. They’ve put in some hard wired system (hooked up to the electric) all smoke and heat detectors, in every single room and on every landing. The only room without one is the bathroom. My system is also linked with downstairs so a fire in either flat will trigger the alarm in both. It seems a little over the top if I’m being honest but I do like the fact they’ve linked the flats. Plus obviously I didn’t pay for any of it, so am not really complaining. Oh and it’s very very loud. Much louder than any battery alarm I’ve had in the past.

We've got 3 in keeping with the fire safety laws for new builds ten years ago, all hardwired, all also set up for heat as well as smoke, plus a separate CO detector (also hardwired).

Locations (for a small 2 bed house) - Kitchen, near the front door and on the landing - one + the CO one for where there is naked flames and gas appliances (hob/boiler), one near to where any fire starting in the consumer unit or living room (open plan) would drift, plus the one for when smoke rises.

My old flat had a battery powered one in the hallway just past the kitchen door.

[quote diamond4u]@Sooverthemill I don't think they do that anymore, when I moved to my new house I enquired about it and was told they no longer do it [/quote]
Really? It must depend on where you live but a google makes it look like it's still on offer from many fire and rescue services. I'd be really surprised if they had stopped doing them as they were incredibly useful ( I briefly worked at a F&R HQ). It might be worth asking again

Argh my pet peeve on this thread! It’s CO detector, not CO2 detector. A CO2 detector would be going off all the time

In answer to the OP, your local fire brigade welcome queries like this, they can advise on your particular circumstances

@StopMakingATitOfUrselfNPissOff OP says her local one doesn't anymore. That's insane if accurate ( might have been a brief Covid pause)

I just looked it up and according to Gov.uk you need a hard wired smoke alarm on every floor plus a carbon monoxide in a room with solid fuel burner.

Remember to test them regularly (we do every Sunday evening)

No need. DP tests them every time he makes roast potatoes.

We've got hardwired interlinked ones on each floor, with an optical one in the kitchen and a carbon monoxide monitor by the boiler.

We also make sure we shut all the doors at night.

@Sooverthemill I’ve fallen foul of another pet peeve, not RTFT 🤦🏼‍♀️

Annoying BiL is giving the same advice that the fire brigade gave me (twice - they came back after 10 years when I asked if what I was doing was current advice).
One smoke detector per floor. (Presuming that is what you are talking about)

I have one in the hall, one on the landing (these are interlinked), one in each bedroom and one in the living room.

My dad was a fireman his whole life (now retired) and my grandpa too. Fire safety was drummed into me my whole life. The first thing my dad does every time he comes into my house is to test my smoke alarm. I can’t image the horrors he saw during his decades in the fire service. I see it on his face now though when a big fire makes the news (he nearly had a breakdown over grenfell) and he certainly has PTSD but he and his retired colleagues never talk about it. That tells me everything I need to know about the importance of fire safety for my family.

The occasional annoyance when I burn my dinner is nothing. Their value is the lives of my family should the worst happen. Why would you skimp on that, they cost next to nothing. I don’t understand why people go for the ‘bare minimum’ smoke alarms.

Forgot to add, my interlinked ones are linked to ADT, I pay a monthly fee for those. If they go off, ADT will attempt to call me on all my contact numbers and the other contacts I’ve nominated. If they get no answer they will notify the fire service, on the assumption that I could not answer as I am overcome by smoke.

As many as you can afford, preferably interlinked like nest. Ive been blasé about smoke alarms until a few months ago when my disabled mother in law set the kitchen on fire then sat down and watched the flames not knowing what to do. Without out nest alarms she would have died before we had any idea anything was wrong. We had monitors in her living area (so we could check on her safety easily as her mobility is dire) so could watch the footage back later. It was terrifying how simply the fire started. She'd left clutter on the cooker, brushed against the knob and turned the ring on. It smoked for a while then burst into flame and started spreading. She sat 8 foot away just watching as the room filled with black smoke. The nest alarms sounded a terrifying loud EMERGENCY EMERGENCY THERE IS A FIRE IN THE ANNEX EMERGENCY EMERGENCY warning. Makes me well up just thinking about it. You cannot have too many smoke alarms.

Largish 4 story Georgian house with the layout being that the middle room on the second floor has no doors leading to staircases which are obviously wooden. So it’s a bit of a fire risk as if there’s a fire in there we can’t get out. So we have one on every floor but they are linked., if one goes off they all do so that we can get out immediately via either one of the front doors.

@Rinoachicken

Forgot to add, my interlinked ones are linked to ADT, I pay a monthly fee for those. If they go off, ADT will attempt to call me on all my contact numbers and the other contacts I’ve nominated. If they get no answer they will notify the fire service, on the assumption that I could not answer as I am overcome by smoke.

How much do you pay adt for that service?

I have just one in the hallway but it's an apartment (built about 12 years ago)
Hard wired plus battery back up, and one in the shared entrance too
It's gone off from steam from the bathroom and toast from the kitchen so seems very.. sensitive
Ground floor so escape plan is the window, as I discovered when someone threw a firework in. I grabbed the cat and that was it poor bemused cat wanted to watch the pretty exploding lights

@Jaybin I understand that but I hope you've also told them exactly what you want them to do if the alarm goes off.

It obviously depends on your house but I taught my son to never open his bedroom door if the smoke alarm was going off and if we didn't appear quickly (we slept next door) to go straight out the window and move away from the house. He was on the ground floor.

And to knock at various selected neighbours houses.

If we were incapacitated or couldn't get to him I wanted him to know exactly what to do so he didn't just hide scared. Or sit in his room until he was overcome with smoke. Or open his door when there could have been fire the other side.

If you don't tell them anything different a child's natural response seems to be to hide which can have disastrous consequences.

@QueenPaws

I have just one in the hallway but it's an apartment (built about 12 years ago) Hard wired plus battery back up, and one in the shared entrance too It's gone off from steam from the bathroom and toast from the kitchen so seems very.. sensitive Ground floor so escape plan is the window, as I discovered when someone threw a firework in. I grabbed the cat and that was it poor bemused cat wanted to watch the pretty exploding lights

This terrifies me. My cat's a nightmare. She would never let us grab her and take her out if the house. She's likely to escape and go and try to hide under the bed 😢

She won't even be picked up for a cuddle and we can't get her in the cat box at all. We had to sedate her 2 years ago after three attempts at getting her to the vet. Last year we were super lucky and she was in a really deep sleep and we moved fast. But tried again last weekend and she wasn't asleep enough and heard me coming.

Her brother was much more amenable. But sadly is no longer with us 😢

@MiniMum97 mine refuses to be picked up, he hates it but I literally scruffed him and slammed the door so he couldn't get back in!

[quote QueenPaws]@MiniMum97 mine refuses to be picked up, he hates it but I literally scruffed him and slammed the door so he couldn't get back in! [/quote]
We'd have to grab her I think abs hold her super tight abs hope she doesn't get away abs we don't hurt her.

She is really agile and very quick abs sharp with her claws. I've had her attached to my back before when trying to get her in the cat box. Although if she were attached to my back at least I could just walk out the door with her lol!!