New standards from the Scottish Government now requires all households to have interlinked smoke and heat detectors installed as a requirement by law. The deadline was moved from 2021 due to the pandemic, to February 1st 2022. That leaves just two weeks to get your fire alarms installed.
These new standards mean that all residential homes must have smoke and heat detectors that comply with the latest health and safety laws. Designed to protect Scottish residents from house fires, the detectors required include:
A smoke alarm in the main living area and in circulation spaces such as hallways and landings
A heat alarm in every kitchen
All alarms ceiling mounted and interlinked
A carbon monoxide alarm where there are fixed combustion appliances such as boilers and wood burners
Having interlinked rather than stand-alone alarms in your rooms differ in that if one alarm goes off, they all go off, so you will always hear an alarm wherever you are in your home. This will give your family time to vacate the home and, if a fire starts during the night, you’ll be alerted as soon as it starts rather than when smoke or heat is close to your bedroom or where your nearest working alarm is placed. Although the rules will give an added to cost to households, it could save your life.
Currently, these rules are in place for private rented properties but will now be mandatory across all homes. The new law aims to protect all residents especially those living in privately owned homes in high rise flats.
The purchase and fitting costs will be the responsibility of the home owner. The alarms can be interlinked via a wireless radio frequency or hard-wired so it’s important to check what you already have in place that meets these new requirements.
You can either purchase these and install them yourself or you can engage the services of a professional company to install them for you – as long as they are installed correctly.