Interlinked Smoke Alarm recommendations

[Nikumba]

Hi All,

Just had building control round as part of my garage conversion and they want me to install interlinked mains powered smoke alarms in the landing, hallway and in the converted garage.

Any particular brands I should look at or avoid? Will need 5 alarms in total to cover the various areas, and BC have said can pull the power from the lighting circuit so that saves a lot of faff.

Thanks

Kimbie

 

[Noakesy85]

I'm not sure what brand ours are (Could be Aico but i would need to check when i get home tonight) But they've been installed since we rewired our house in 2011 and they've never failed.

As BC stated, these were both powered direct from the lighting circuit which is a huge faff reducer.

 

[Pho]

I've also got Aico alarms and from what I understand they're considered a top tier brand.

I'm not sure what brand ours are (Could be Aico but i would need to check when i get home tonight) But they've been installed since we rewired our house in 2011 and they've never failed.

As BC stated, these were both powered direct from the lighting circuit which is a huge faff reducer.

Aico - and I guess every manufactuers' alarms - need to be replaced every 10 years as their sensitivity / detection weakens over time, so you might want to consider changing yours.

I need to replace mine next year.

 

[Noakesy85]

I've also got Aico alarms and from what I understand they're considered a top tier brand.



Aico - and I guess every manufactuers' alarms - need to be replaced every 10 years as their sensitivity / detection weakens over time, so you might want to consider changing yours.

I need to replace mine next year.

Cheers for the reminder, its been on my To-Do list for a while but as with life things happen and you forget. The house was rented from 2014 until 2024. We were meant to replace them when we moved back in but never got round to it.

 

[Vestas]

Aico - and I guess every manufactuers' alarms - need to be replaced every 10 years as their sensitivity / detection weakens over time

Depends on whether you're using an ionisation or optical smoke detector. Ionisation ones need changing every few years as the radiation decays, optical don't.

Note that the "10 year" limits on optical alarms are actually the lifespan of the sealed lithium-ion backup battery, I prefer ones with removable 9V battery backups.

 

[Pho]

Depends on whether you're using an ionisation or optical smoke detector. Ionisation ones need changing every few years as the radiation decays, optical don't.

Note that the "10 year" limits on optical alarms are actually the lifespan of the sealed lithium-ion backup battery, I prefer ones with removable 9V battery backups.

Ahh, intersting. It looks like Aico recommend 10 years on the ionisation ones too, but that's probably just a blanket thing to cover them.

Checking mine, I have a carbon monoxide alarm (mains + lithium), two opticals (mains + 9V), and a heat alarm (mains + 9V) and they all seem to suggest 10 years.

 

[Vestas]

It looks like Aico recommend 10 years on the ionisation ones too, but that's probably just a blanket thing to cover them.

No that'll be because the radiation emitted from the radioactive source (the ioniser) has decayed too much to work any more.

Basically an ionisation alarm uses a radioactive source/detector, small particles of smoke block the radiation received at the detector and the alarm goes off.

An optical alarm uses an IR LED to detect large particles of smoke.