General Chat

Make sure you have them and they work.

I spent most of yesterday helping a friend who left her home literally for ten minutes to walk her dogs before a road trip. She was still on our road, when neighbours heard her alarms going off. In the fifteen mins max from her leaving to the fire brigade showing up and quickly dealing with it....the whole house was full of smoke. When it happens it can happen fast, if she'd been home those seconds would have meant the difference between life and death.

Better safe than sorry check them today.

Glad she is ok. Goodness what a shock though. Any idea what caused the fire?

They think an electrical fault. It seems to have started in the wall behind a brand new unused albeit plugged in microwave that's sat there for a year. We had a bad storm the night before and there had been power flickering on and off and surges which might have been involved. Her house had been completely renovated finishing last summer, fully inspected all wiring changed. It might just be one of those unexplained fires still waiting for the insurance people to show up and inspect!

It sometimes is not necessarily a real wiring fault that starts a fire..for example a bad connection....continually plugging in and out, instead of switching off first, can cause a burn mark on the plug pins and sockets,causing eventually overheating and a fire.....
although a loose connection in a wallsocket can have the same result..
Especially with extension lead multisockets....

I have batttery operated ones and when the battery is getting low it beeps till you replace the battery

It's the flat 9 v type and I always buy a pack of them so there are always spares

This friend is so up on alarms she has battery ones, plug in ones and the nest which kept telling us hours later there was smoke in the house as we were outside....windows and doors wide open.

we have several, but one B*****r once it sets off, it wont reset till i take the battery out, for a few minutes..ours are wi fi to a bed shaker thingy..


Bob

Bob please explain the bed shaker thingy.

We had a really sensitive alarm that would go off if a neighbour had a bonfire. Once a month we would go out to a quiz at the social club in the next village leaving Fred tucked up safe in bed.

One night we came home at eleven, to hear the alarm giving it some as it had been since about half past seven.

Next door had been outside wondering where the noise was coming from a couple of times but poor old Fred had had to lie in bed listening to it.

That'll larn 'un!

:-D

Most people I know have ripped them out.

1. too sensitive and 2. battery doesn't last more than a few weeks and starts beeping in the middle of the night.

Not the best idea, I know, but they really need to come up with some better technology.

We can buy some with fitted batteries that last 10 yrs then you replace the whole unit.

There's something about the cooler night time making the low power battery go off...Modern family did a good show on the beeping battery warning once.

VERY silly idea not having a detector working.

We have 2 wired-in battery alarms, one upstairs and one in the basement, both installed on the advice of an electrician who re-wired our house a few years ago to replace battery-operated ones that used to need batteries changing every year.

We've found that the upstairs one, which is in a hallway leading from the kitchen to the bedrooms, is easily set off when we cook certain things ..... we no longer grill for example ....... or if we burn something, even toast. The only way to turn off these wired-in ones is to switch off at fuse box.

We are now about to buy new battery ones to add to the system, because I realised recently (slow learner!!) that if we have an electricity cut, the wired-in alarms will no longer be effective.

The Fire Brigade will happily inspect the home, advise on fire prevention and supply & fit appropriate alarms.

We were fitted with 2 of the sealed units 10 years ago. We’ve recently replaced them for about a tenner each. If that’s outside a persons budget, go back to the Fire Brgade & ask for help!

Ann, if Bob doesn’t come back with an answer, have you thought about asking them , hospital OT department , Social Services or the RNID?

Bob please explain the bed shaker thingy.....

Ann...

supplied by the council, because like you I have a severe hearing problem,

Made by "Bellman" the Visit range has a telephone transmitter that transmits to a control device which transmits to a pager,also sends to a vibrator pad under the pillow.it can also be connected to a door bell
in the event of any smoke alarm or telephone call this pad vibrates,

bellman visit, model BE 1123

Smoke alarms are mandatory in all new houses in WA and have to be hardwired. If this is not possible as in our upstairs you can fit a 10 year battery operated on, but only with the written permission of the Local Council.

You also have to have them fitted if you sell an existing house which didn't previously require them

Having seen the results of many fires when working, I've always had smoke alarms

Smoke alarms are very much a last chance fix and of course do nothing at all to prevent the problem starting in the first place or stopping it!

The "ring main" in common use in the UK for domestic wiring in premises up to about 200m2 is inherently unsafe. For that reason the installation of such circuits is illegal in most of the workd including the USA, Canada and the EU. Eire, Cyprus and Malta still use the ring main as well as radial circuits.

The ring main relies for its integrity on the two sides of the ring being balance with electrical continuity together with fused plugs. It is far cheaper to install than the more usual radial system but much less safe hence the frequently reported fires and smoke alarms.

The householder should purchase a number of 13 amp RCD circuit breakers. They cost around £ 10-15 from Screwfix and other diy places. The cuircuit breaker should be plugged into the ring main and as much stuff as poss run from the CB rather than plugged into the ring main directly. Then if something goes wrong the device affected will instantly lose power. No smoke, no fire.

The following shouod never be left to operate unattended :
tumble dryers, it equipment especially including phone chargers and step down transformers to DC current.

Ring mains... a complete ring main... is basically two sets of 20amp cables (in parallel) backed up by a 30 amp fuse....with a limited number of sockets fitted to it... (plus earth wires, of course)


You will get only one 3 kw device to run from a 13a circuit breaker...and it is extremely bad practice to daisychain multisockets...

IT items draw only a few Milliamps each and as such are often used with multisockets

I was installing Ring mains from late 50's and at the time they were the ideal solution, to get as many sockets into a room as possible the idea being two sockets per room was next to useless so the more the better, the diversity factor meaning that they were unlikely to be fully loaded..
and less likelihood of using 3way (or more) adapters which WERE a source of fires..

My point of the thread wasn't how to stop fires starting but make sure if one does then get out safely and quickly, but thanks for the advice. Personally, I wouldn't recommend anyone do electrical work on their own home unless they're very comfortable doing so...even easy jobs can have costly mistakes with them and good luck with an insurance claim if anything does happen.

Again, Caroline, not a problem in WA as only a licenced electrician can carry out electrical work.

Fortunately we have a very good one who has been doing our work for nearly 20 years.

And I totally agree with your point about smoke alarms. They are meant to warn people and save lives not to prevent fires per se