Alarms - Mains Wired, Interconnected

Well, I always like to put a heat alarm in a kitchen but on a recent job the customer said she didn’t want one and the BCO said she didn’t need to have one - which I thought was odd because he normally said they had to be fitted
Yes, a little odd - but BCOs aren't necessarily known for their consistency (nor, in some cases, even common sense :) ).

Smoke alarms in kitchens can obviously be a problem/inconvenience. - so we all tend to use heat alarms there for that reason. However, I imagine that there has to be quite a fire going in a kitchen before a heat alarm operates (they must have a reasonably high 'threshold' - for a few days a couple years ago, it got to 40 degrees or so in our kitchen, so probably higher at ceiling level), by which time I would imagine that enough smoke will have been generated to activate other alarms in the house - so I'm not convinced that heat alarms in kitchens are necessarily as useful as we would like to think. However, they do no harm (and might do good), so we usually fit them.
 
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IMHO - no you can not have too many alarms but you might have too few - but yes unless installed in good positions sensibly then false alarms can induce a disconnection attitude in some, so that is also something to avoid./
 
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IMHO - no you can not have too many alarms but you might have too few - but yes unless installed in good positions sensibly then false alarms can induce a disconnection attitude in some, so that is also something to avoid.
Quite - that was obviously my point. Over the years I've seen a good few cases in which smoke alarms have clearly been removed or disarmed and when I've asked "why?" have invariably been told that the reason was that they were "driving people mad"! Since that attitude/reaction is 'understandable', we therefore do need to try to do things to minimise the risk of 'people being driven mad'.

Of course, there is also another issue of 'human nature', which we often discuss in relation to RCDs etc. - namely that the existence of any 'safety devices' (whether 'preventers' or 'detectors') can result in come complacency - i.e. some people may, quite probably unconsciously, decide that because they have smoke/heat alarms, they don't have to be so careful about not leaving candles burning overnight,ensuring that gas hobs were switched off and ciggies extinguished before retiring to bed etc. - but ether's not a lot that can be done about that, other than attempts to 'give proper education'!

This thread has reminded me of a question that I want to ask about "mains wired interconnected smo ke/heat alarms2 but, rather than doing the usual 'hijacking', I'll start a new thread.

Kind Regards, John
 

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