Hi folks,
Recent discussions about 'fire' alarms have reminded me of a decision I'll have to make soon in relation to a house I am refurbishing.
I will be installing a few (probably Aico) interconnected (hard-wired) mains-powered (and re-chargeable battery backed-up) smoke/heat/CO alarms. Although the presence of backup batteries makes this much less important, as often discussed I am personally no fan of supplying such things from a 'dedicated' circuit, much preferring to power them from the ground floor lighting circuit (whose failure would be rapidly noticed).
The question is whether I should include any sort of 'isolation' facility in the feed to the alarms. Such would obviously be convenient if it were ever necessary to 'work on' the wiring of the alarms (without having to disable the lighting) but that would probably be a 'once-in-a-blue-moon' activity.
Were it not for the backup batteries, a concern might be that any 'means of of isolation' might result in the alarms being 'switched off' (and perhaps then never re-instated, in the event of some annoying malfunction of the alarm system. However, at least for a while, the batteries would continue powering the alarms even if the mains supply were switched off - which could be a problem (annoyance) with some sorts of malfunction (maybe very improbable?).
There are things I can't remember about Aico alarms,, so maybe someone can remind me (I'm not at home at the moment, and therefore can't experiment with my own system)? Do they 'make a noise' if they loose mains power, even if they are still being powered by the back-up battery? .. and this which I can't easily test ... does anyone know whether they make a noise in the event that the (rechargeable) battery gets 'low' (I imagine they do)?
The compromise I'm currently contemplating is to feed the alarms (from ground floor lighting circuit) through an unswitched FCU and/or a key-operated switch (with the key available adjacent to the switch) - in both cases to more-or-less eliminate the risk of it being accidentally switched off, but not preventing deliberate switching off. What do you think?
There is another issue, but which I don't think I can do much about. All the alarms will be ceiling-mounted and some, probably most, of the rooms will be over 3m high - so the alarms may well not be accessible using an average domestic step ladder, even for 'able' people. I presume that the alarms could be temporarily silenced/'hushed' by use of a broomstick or similar, but that wouldn't last long if the alarms were continuing to alarm/malfunction. I don't think there is any way of remotely (and 'permanently') 'killing' a whole (hard-wired') Aico system, is there?
Any thoughts/suggestions would be much appreciated.
Kind Regards, John
Recent discussions about 'fire' alarms have reminded me of a decision I'll have to make soon in relation to a house I am refurbishing.
I will be installing a few (probably Aico) interconnected (hard-wired) mains-powered (and re-chargeable battery backed-up) smoke/heat/CO alarms. Although the presence of backup batteries makes this much less important, as often discussed I am personally no fan of supplying such things from a 'dedicated' circuit, much preferring to power them from the ground floor lighting circuit (whose failure would be rapidly noticed).
The question is whether I should include any sort of 'isolation' facility in the feed to the alarms. Such would obviously be convenient if it were ever necessary to 'work on' the wiring of the alarms (without having to disable the lighting) but that would probably be a 'once-in-a-blue-moon' activity.
Were it not for the backup batteries, a concern might be that any 'means of of isolation' might result in the alarms being 'switched off' (and perhaps then never re-instated, in the event of some annoying malfunction of the alarm system. However, at least for a while, the batteries would continue powering the alarms even if the mains supply were switched off - which could be a problem (annoyance) with some sorts of malfunction (maybe very improbable?).
There are things I can't remember about Aico alarms,, so maybe someone can remind me (I'm not at home at the moment, and therefore can't experiment with my own system)? Do they 'make a noise' if they loose mains power, even if they are still being powered by the back-up battery? .. and this which I can't easily test ... does anyone know whether they make a noise in the event that the (rechargeable) battery gets 'low' (I imagine they do)?
The compromise I'm currently contemplating is to feed the alarms (from ground floor lighting circuit) through an unswitched FCU and/or a key-operated switch (with the key available adjacent to the switch) - in both cases to more-or-less eliminate the risk of it being accidentally switched off, but not preventing deliberate switching off. What do you think?
There is another issue, but which I don't think I can do much about. All the alarms will be ceiling-mounted and some, probably most, of the rooms will be over 3m high - so the alarms may well not be accessible using an average domestic step ladder, even for 'able' people. I presume that the alarms could be temporarily silenced/'hushed' by use of a broomstick or similar, but that wouldn't last long if the alarms were continuing to alarm/malfunction. I don't think there is any way of remotely (and 'permanently') 'killing' a whole (hard-wired') Aico system, is there?
Any thoughts/suggestions would be much appreciated.
Kind Regards, John