Guilt Free Railing 18

[WouldBeGood]

Will it ever end?

I know it's a rail that's been done a few times but ...bloody smoke alarms.

I thought we were fine as got interlinked and heat sensor when the electrician rewired downstairs a couple of years ago. But when I read it, it says we also have to have one in our main living space.
So I have a small sitting room with a log burner (so not very practical for a smoke alarm) and the main smoke alarm is in the hallway all of 50cm from the living room door.
Then I have a dining kitchen with a little sofa which already has a heat alarm in it.

Do these rules not take account of different house sizes in any way? It's a small terrace of two rooms. Three bloody alarms to cover them is ridiculous

The whole smoke alarm thing is stupid. But no they don't take into account house sizes. Which is part of the reason it's stupid.

But things to remember nobody is ever going to check, if your house goes on fire what you have will get you out - nothing else matters - GTF out.

About 30 years ago I watched some head bummer of Strathclyde Fire Brigade very professionally stand of top of a chair and give a talk on Fire Safety. His no nonsense hard hitting talk has never left me, a domestic house will be fully ablaze in 4 minutes.
The stand at Bradford was fully ablaze in 4.5 mins. God bless them

I really do think the message ScotGov should be putting out is that domestic houses with soft furnishings and timber go up very quickly.
Smoke alarms last 10 years check they work and check they are in date.

That's the message to be shouting from your soap box. Make sure what people have is working.

4 minutes - that's terrifying!

Exactly... That is really frightening. I can't understand why they've gone for the micromanagement approach here. Surely the "rule" should be every occupant is alerted to a fire immediately wherever they are in the property, and that there is a means of exit from the property from all floors (or appropriate fire doors or similar if that's not possible?). That will vary according to the size and layout of the property, and the needs of the occupants. So a mansion may need more interlinked smoke alarms than a 2 up 2 down, and one occupied by someone hard of hearing or with limited mobility may need different systems to another similar property. Rather than specifying a certain system which, as we have identified, may be totally inappropriate or unnecessary for a given situation.

We've got the "2 alarms 50cm apart" requirement too, but equally, if we followed the law to the letter would have about half the floorspace on the ground floor totally uncovered by any alarm, with loads of doors inbetween. Surely that's not the point of it. The point is stopping people dying needlessly through not being alerted, and that needs to be followed by being able to gtf out... so why not legislate for that?!

The smoke alarms are an absolute joke. They should be giving normal ones out to those who don’t have any and teaching About fire safely etc

It’s not just the alarm, it’s redecorating for some. The new alarms are smaller than my parents old ones so they now have circles on the ceiling

It’s also the concern people are taking out proper hard wired smoke alarms to replace with battery operated ones that talk to each other (hopefully).
I am just going to ignore it. I have four smoke alarms but I cannot see why I would add one to my kitchen which already has a heat alarm just because it is deemed our main living space.
The kids are currently playing on the landing and there’s three there so that’s our main living space today!

Yes they are fucking up a fairly good system. It should be done as part of the building regulations so new properties / properties being renovated going forward need xyz or they could even add that if your adding an extension you must upgrade the fire alarm system.

Ripping out hard wired linked alarms in favour of radio linked is just nuts absolutely nuts. I worry that some radio link will fail because of interference and some poor family will end up toast.

It's a knee jerk reaction to Grenfell without considering what all went wrong. It was a concrete building fire should have been contained within the apartment it should never have been able to rip up the outside.

Smoke alarms wouldn't have made any difference, people in the building were being told to sit tight.

Honestly ScotGov are absolute muppets, and love people to think they are cuddly and caring but really they just screw thing up.

"Surely the "rule" should be every occupant is alerted to a fire immediately wherever they are in the property, and that there is a means of exit from the property from all floors (or appropriate fire doors or similar if that's not possible?). That will vary according to the size and layout of the property, and the needs of the occupants."

This is it exactly @ResilienceWanker. The most concerning thing to me about all this isn't that people will have to fork out lots of money, but rather than the one-size-fits-all approach of it is clearly inappropriate from a safety point of view. Sounds like a case of a not bad idea on the surface being butchered into something unworkable and possibly less safe by poorly written legislation as per bloody usual with the SG. I'm not actually convinced this is the sort of thing that should actually be law in the first place, especially given no-one has said they intend to enforce it in any way. To me it looks more like something that should be best practice, but absolutely tailored to the needs of the property rather than the way it's written.

Yip it's a "one size fits nobody approach."
The actual building regs will have pages written on smoke and fire detection in domestic properties but they are trying to summaries that into a one liner.
Badly thought out and no considerations that its not the best way forward.

Sooner or later someone will pay a heavy price for it.

Couldn't agree more with what you've all said. It's also based on an out of date way of living. We don't all gather in the living room for an evening of watching TV anymore and think a lot of people are similar. We don't really have a "main" living area. DS and I are probably only in the living room for about an hour a day, DH a bit more but he has his pc in the dining room so spends as much time there, I might be in the study or kitchen or family room, DS is mostly in his bedroom.

Technically we should be fitting an alarm in a room that's used more by the cat than humans.

There is no way anyone in our new build type house wouldn't be alerted by our existing wired alarms from any room in the house.

Cat safety is important - absolutely @Lockdownbear total failure to understand or deal with the main issue wrt Grenfell.

So irritated - younger dc tested positive yesterday so off all week stuck inside, and myself and elder dc still testing positive despite feeling better so waiting for our 10 days which will be towards the end of the week.

People definitely don't all gather in Living Rooms lots of houses and flats are open plan. We spend most of our time in part of our kitchen.

They really could push the message on how important they are and how quickly houses go on fire.
I know it's 30 years since I was told, I've since Googled it and it is right 4 minutes.

Thats the message they need to get out I bet if they ran an ad campaign on that those who don't have smoke alarms would be running toot sweet to B&Q.

Absolutely - hell I'm having a mild panic about the flammability of my soft furnishings!

See if that video works.

The regulations for soft furnishings changed in 1988 to make them less famiable (spelling) but it's still frightening how quickly fire spreads. If you have a fire in a house get out, don't faff, get out.

It's unintended consequences again really.

Action should be to ensure that everyone is aware of how quickly it can spread, fire prevention advice, having alarms and testing them regularly and continuing to have the Fire Brigade support this.

Instead you have people who can't afford the expected standard and end up not doing anything.

Put the updated standard (or a sensible version of it) into new build regulations or where a major upgrade is done and ensure everyone else has something in place. I'm also wary of the radio linked ones, would it end up not communicating like when trying to get your bluetooth printer to wirelessly print?

Thats my fear too radio link could easily fail. Things drop signals all the time. Interference gets in the way. We all probably have too many wireless devices all competing for radio waves.
Everything from Alexas to bathroom scales to light bulbs then the other stuff, phones, tablets all trying to connect to stuff.

Does everyone have a fire plan that they and their children know? At one point we were going to get one of those roll up ladders from the upstairs but we can exit via our bathroom and en-suite windows onto the sloping roof of the garage and that takes you to first floor level. failing that, it's mattresses out the bedroom window to help with a dreeped exit from the windows. We have plenty of options from the downstairs. I don't think it's possible to be more than 10 feet from an exit.

We don't but I'm on the get out logic. But I might actually sit and think about it. We have 2 rooms at one end of the hall and two at the other. Easy enough to grab the child at the same end as us. Our other child is more difficult. Mmmm 🤔

I go on the basis that the better the plan the less likely I'm ever going to need it. DHs brother died at age 21 in a house fire at his grandparents (he'd stayed with them after going to the football). It was a Glasgow tenement I think, they got out and he didn't, the fire was in the room he was sleeping in as he'd been smoking in bed. DH has therefore always been a little paranoid about fire but even he isn't minded to change what we have in terms of alarms.

That's a really good point @ElephantOfRisk. We're in a townhouse and our bedrooms are on the second floor. Awful about your DH's brother. That's so sad.

Thank you. He was just saying the other day that none of the men in his family have lived past 71. He's lost 3 brothers at ages 21, 48 and 70. It's similar in my family, I lost a brother at 42 and my dad at 67, grandads were 71 and 36. My mum got to 83 but the last few years weren't good years and apart from 1, none of her side have made it past early 70s and my dad's side is even earlier.

Oh, gosh, @ElephantOfRisk, what a horrible thing to happen.

That is really sobering @ElephantOfRisk, very sad for you all. My dad died in his 60s, it's what has driven my middle aged attempt at a healthier lifestyle. I'd like to be in good fettle to see DC get older.

Thanks folks, yes it is sobering. Dss are 21 and 20 so just the age DHs brother was. Dss have had barely any grandparents, 3 of them having died either before they were born or while they were babies/toddlers and I grew up the same. It makes me regret not having them until we were mid/late 30s but that couldn't be helped. My older brother has grandchildren nearly as old as my children and is only a couple of years older than DH. DH keeps himself much healthier than I do. I need to make more effort.

Elephant that's awful. Just so sad.

Fire and smoke is such a frightening thing. But I really don't believe smoke alarm changes will make houses safer