Reply With QuoteA chat with your local fire officer would be worth it.A battery system would be less trouble than a hard wired one ,but won’t come cheap.Somthing along the lines of EMS may be an option.
I have a flat in a house – 3 flats – one on each floor – largish building - all are currently rented out, not a HMO just 3 separate flats.
Each flat inside has a smoke detector or 2. In the communal area we have just installed emergency lighting but have have come to a stop with the fire alarm. Obviously we currently have 3 battery smoke alarms in the hall and on the first floor landing. We paid for a fire assessment but they didn't recommend what type of system would be required (asked them but they don't do this - what !?!) Quotes vary from £500 (very basic system) to £4K+ for a hard wired circuit / battery back up.
Consulting the local councils website is useless and vague to say the least, no real detail and most of the possible useful links were dead!
Has anyone been in the same situation and worked out what level of fire/smoke detectors/alarms they need to conform to current regulations. Any links or direct advice would be appreciated – thanks!
A chat with your local fire officer would be worth it.A battery system would be less trouble than a hard wired one ,but won’t come cheap.Somthing along the lines of EMS may be an option.
Hello
This is one of the problems with fire safety in buildings currently, the information is found in numerous places and the over arching order does not specify - chances are the fire risk assessor didn’t know
With out seeing the property I would presume installing a fire alarm system in accordance with BS5839 - to LD3 or LD2 standard would suffice
These are hard wired systems and cover the communal areas and if required the high risk areas like kitchens.
Feel free to drop me a pm more than happy to chat through to offer advice if required.
https://www.emcouncils.gov.uk/write/...il_Perdell.pdf
I found this on line, it lists what is required quite well, (I have no association with the writer)
John
Last edited by Sinnlover; 25th February 2021 at 19:31.
Probably fire officer is worth talking too as recommended above. Besides what you’ve said, overage for main habitable room, heat sensor for kitchen, etc. Consider your CO alarms too. And fire escape windows.
A new BS for buildings >18m is coming out…. Assume this doesn’t apply to the OPOriginally Posted by Sinnlover
But, a standard conventional system is fine for escape/ common areas…. Wired and battey backed (24 hour standby)
The flats will not be linked to the main system
Use interlink mains powered battery backed domestic systems for the flats
Smokes on landing and heat in the kitchen
A local fire a s security company do these kind of things all the time…. Get a couple of quotes
Last edited by Wolfie; 25th February 2021 at 20:15.
Yep correct an LD3 (common areas only) or LD2 (covers kitchen as well) will suffice. If the OP were to ask for either they will get what they require.
I have a similar situation. Shop with two flats above. One on each floor. Shared front door to flats via a shared stair case.
I had a FRA done and on the back of that installed a hard wired system that spans each of the 3 properties and the stairs.
Each property has hard wired heat sensors and smoke detectors. Alarms are interlinked so if there is a detection in the shop both flats get the warning and vice versa. The control panel is in the shop and a duplicate in the stairs.
We also had to change the flat doors to fire doors. The building is 100 years old.
This whole set up cost about £5k.
I did find the FRA guy wasn’t keen to specify so I gave his report to the alarm company and they designed a system which the FRA guy said would meet his recommendations.
Seems hard and fast guidelines are not as visible as you may hope but what we did was considered best practice.
The system is also subject to a maintenance contact.
If you put in break glass call points you will have to pay for weekly inspections. We had these which are over specified so removed them as we didn’t need or want the weekly inspections.
Edit. We probably went beyond the minimum requirements but I don’t want a fire issue.
Last edited by Montello; 25th February 2021 at 20:42.
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