Fire & CO Alarms
Giving your customers the right advice
Basing your customer advice about smoke, heat and carbon monoxide on the latest British Standards, rather than Building Regulations, could pay dividends as well as save lives, explains Rex Taylor, Technical Support Manager of Kidde Safety.
C
overing both new and existing homes, BS 5839-6:2013, Part 6: Code of practice for the design,
installation, commissioning and maintenance of fire detection and fire alarm systems in domestic premises provides the definitive guidance on smoke and heat alarms. The latest edition, replacing the previous 2004 version, incorporates several important changes and covers sheltered housing for the first time. Although taking a risk assessment approach, it does list the minimum Categories (in which areas smoke/heat alarms are required) and Grades (reliability of a system in terms of its power sources) recommended for different types of housing. Here, there are major discrepancies between the Code and Building Regulations Part B, applying to England and Wales. For the majority of homes – including new
or materially altered homes (such as loft conversions) up to three storeys and with no single floor over 200m2 - the Code recommends a minimum Category LD2. This means at least one smoke alarm in every principal habitable room and at least one heat
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alarm in every kitchen, in addition to smoke alarms in circulation areas.
More smoke alarms But the current Approved Document B still
falls well below this minimum standard, despite making reference to the Code itself. Part B continues to require only Category LD3 protection, with smoke alarms just in corridors and heat alarms in some (but not all) kitchens – the room where most fires start. As the Code points out, Category LD3, called for in Part B, might not prevent death or serious injury in rooms where fires start, such as living rooms. There is therefore a strong case to use the
Code recommendation of more alarms, rather than Part B. Responsible specifiers routinely exceed Part B requirements already. Interestingly, Regulations in the rest of the UK and Ireland do effectively follow the Code. And with devolvement of Building Regulations in Wales to the Welsh Assembly Government Part B might no longer apply there either in the future.
One area where all the Building Regulations and the Code are agreed is in demanding Grade D hard-wired, interconnected smoke and heat alarms with back-up power. Battery-
The 2013 Code of Practice now
excludes battery
only smoke alarms from all
rented homes.
only smoke alarms are not permitted where Building Regulations apply and, according to the Code, Grade F battery-powered alarms can only be considered in existing, owner- occupied, one or two storey dwellings – and then only where there is a ‘reasonable certainty’ that batteries will be replaced when necessary: sealed-in battery alarms can help resolve this issue. But with another important change, the 2013 Code of Practice now excludes battery- only smoke alarms from all rented homes.
Hard-wired interlinked So, there is now a compelling argument to
recommend electrical contractors to fit hard- wired, interlinked smoke and heat alarms as a
lContinued over March 2015 electrical wholesaler | 17
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