Scotland New Regulations

  • Thread starter Deleted member 15266
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Deleted member 15266

Had electrician fit new smoke alarms etc to comply with new regulations in Scotland. We had alarms on the stairs and landing which were old but wired which he disconnected. The house was built I believe in 1990. Is this ok from a building regulations point of view? He didn’t do anything with the fuse box. The new alarms are Aico Optical 10 year battery.
 
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Hmm. I don't think so. The alarms must be interlinked (either wired together, or using wireless link). So that they all sound if there is an alarm.
Also there must also be a heat alarm in the kitchen. Where's that?

Here's an overview:

What each home needs
By February 2022 every home must have:

  • one smoke alarm in the living room or the room you use most
  • one smoke alarm in every hallway or landing
  • one heat alarm in the kitchen
All smoke and heat alarms should be mounted on the ceiling and be interlinked.

If you have a carbon-fuelled appliance – like a boiler, fire, heater or flue – in any room, you must also have a carbon monoxide detector in that room, but this does not need to be linked to the fire alarms

Read all of it here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fire-and-smoke-alarms-in-scottish-homes/
 
Yes he installed 3 x interlinked radio/wireless alarms, one heat alarm in kitchen but carbon monoxide. What I’m asking was he okay to disconnect the existing mains smoke alarms and replace with wireless?
 
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It’s ok to disconnect the old. looks like you are ok.

Only another 3,999,999 Scottish homes to be sorted by the end of February. What’s the chances of that happening??:eek:
 
I live in Scotland and think the new regs are not too bad but could be better. I'd rather have all alarms linked by MICC than some wireless link.
 
I live in Scotland and think the new regs are not too bad but could be better. I'd rather have all alarms linked by MICC than some wireless link.
The question is of course whether it is worth it.

Apparently lockdowns have increased the number of people dying in house fires in Scotland, but it's still only 53 people per year. The UK government values a life at about 1.8 million pounds, so that means if you could eliminate all deaths in house fires in Scotland then that would be worth about 95 million pounds. There are about 2.5 million houses in scotland, so by those numbers it would be worth spending about £38 per house per year to eliminate all deaths in house fires in Scotland.

But no alarm system will completely eliminate deaths.

So is it really worth spending lots of time and money installing MICC for what is likely a marginal increase in lives saved? or is it better to take a solution that can actually be deployed at scale at a cost which homeowners will find tolerable and which is at least in the ballpark of the likely benefits?
 
The question is of course whether it is worth it.
That's always the $64,000 question with these sort of things. For example, as you will be aware, I have often wondered how many lives have been saved as a consequence of the £billions spent on RCDs in the UK alone, and goodness knows how much globally.
Apparently lockdowns have increased the number of people dying in house fires in Scotland, but it's still only 53 people per year. ...
Fair enough, and to put that into some context, you say that on a day on which (somewhat to my amazement, albeit I am well past being surprised by anything 'we' do!) 'we' appear to have abandoned nearly all of the few remaining 'restrictions' in the face of there currently being roughly 53 Covid deaths every 3½ HOURS!
The UK government values a life at about 1.8 million pounds ...
If that's the case, then they currently ought to be prepared to spend (e.g. to compensate for 'economic damage'') around £630 million per day (around £230billion per year) to 'eliminate' Covid deaths !

Kind Regards, John
 
There's about 1.3million private homes in Scotland, rented property has needed interlinked smoke alarms for years.

Still plenty to do though!
 
Still plenty to do though!
Only because people have left it until the final few days to get them installed.

The legislation that requires them was introduced in January 2019, originally with a date of February 2021 to comply, giving people two years.
Subsequently extended to February 2022, so people have now had three years to get them installed.
 

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