Smoke alarms

[ProseccoOnIce]

I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but it's now time to do the work.

I'm seriously considering buying alarms online & installing myself, as the cost of that seems to be about £120, compared to nearly £300 to get an electrician.

I'd be getting battery operated interlinked (not hard-wired).

Has anyone done this themselves?

How easy was it?

Any recommendations for online purchases?

Thanks

Yes, I’ve done it myself, it was easy enough if you are happy following instructions, use the correct type of detector (heat/smoke etc). Safe lincs have a useful page on the Scottish Regs.
https://www.safelincs.co.uk/scotland-2022-regulation-smoke-heat-co-carbon-monoxide-alarms/

We still need to do this too. Although after being woken at 3am last week because ds(19) left the grill switched on after he decided to make himself toasted cheese in the middle of the night 🤦‍♀️ we know our current one, which is older than ds, is working and we can hear it upstairs!

Has anyone replaced their own hard wired ones? I would rather they were replaced instead of having two on the ceiling. I come from a generation where we managed to change our own plugs 😂 - is it just as simple as turning off the power at the mains, disconnect, check wires are in good condition, reconnect the wires in the same place? Same as when you change a light switch?

Haven't done ours yet. We have 2 existing wired in ones but think we need another in the living room and a heat detector for the kitchen. It's a shame to replace the working ones with crappy battery ones unless you can add to the existing ones?

Thanks @Notjustamum10 - that link was really helpful & I'll order some.

I should be able to manage the instructions- it's more the screwing it in to the ceiling I'm worried about!

I can't face paying someone an extra £200+ to fit them (especially given they'll not be hard-wired).

yes it’s easy to do them yourself. Or even if you didn’t want to do that you could get a handyman to do it, would only be a few mins. The long life battery ones are fine, we haven’t got the hard wired ones. Bought them off firelink I think

You do not need an electrician to install battery operated ones. They literally stick on the ceiling with a sticky pad. My husband is an electrician and I did ours. All I'd say is when you test them to ensure they are all interlinked it is VERY loud. Poor cats were traumatised!