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Urgent warning over new smoke and CO alarm regulations

A warning has gone out to landlords with properties in Scotland regarding legislation coming into effect in early 2022.

Trade association SELECT is warning that all heat, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms being fitted under new legislation must comply with relevant product standards.

The alert, issued jointly with another trade group in Scotland - SCOTSS - says landlords must comply with the new rules and ideally should use a competent person, such as a professional electrician, to carry out any necessary installation work.

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The new ‘Tolerable Standard’, which comes into effect on February 1 2022 requires that all homes in Scotland must have satisfactory equipment to detect and give warning of fire and CO.

In practice, this means a smoke alarm on every storey including hallways and landings, a smoke alarm in the most frequented part of the house, e.g. the lounge, a heat alarm in the kitchen, and a CO alarm wherever there is a fuel burning appliance or flue.

In addition, to ensure there is an effective warning system to keep everyone and their property safe, all the heat and smoke alarms must be interlinked and be either mains-powered with battery back-up or battery powered by a tamper-proof long-life battery.

SCOTSS chair Graeme Paton, says: “This is a major change to what is required in terms of fire and CO detection in dwellings and we must get the message across that all new and existing systems have to be wholly compliant.

“There is a risk of scammers taking advantage of this situation so we would also urge householders to only use genuine SELECT members or local firms that are approved by Trading Standards to do this work.”

SCOTSS is now advising all landlords north of the border to make sure alarms are labelled and marked with the following:

- Manufacturer’s name and address;

- Batch code/date of manufacture;

- Model number and type;

- The relevant standard number for the type of alarm installed.

For heat detectors, products should be identified as compliant with ‘BS EN 5446-2’, while smoke alarms and multi-sensor alarms should be identified as compliant with ‘BS EN 14604’ and CO alarms should be identified as compliant with  ‘BS EN 50291-1’. Multi-sensor alarms may also be identified as compliant with ‘BS EN 54-29’.

Anyone coming across non-compliant products should contact the Scottish Government-funded consumer helpline on 0808 164 6000 and information will be passed onto local trading standards where appropriate.

Bob Cairney, technical services director at SELECT, adds: “The clock is ticking. February will be upon us before we know it and it is of the utmost importance that both householders and those installing the alarms clearly understand what is required for compliance.

“SCOTSS has rightly warned consumers of the danger that unscrupulous people might try to take advantage of those who are unsure about how to comply and about the need to use trusted sources of information.

“For mains-powered alarms or where householders need help to install battery-powered alarms, we would ask that they use a qualified electrician.”

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.

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    All homes in Scotland? Just rental homes I think as owner occupied homes aren't affected. More expense for the landlord which the tenants will ultimately pay for.

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    It does apply to ALL homes but the SNP aren't publicising it in case it costs them votes, although most of their voters aren't sufficiently financially astute to become property owners.

     
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    Possibly the worst decision made. Anybody with experience of interlinked in a tenanted property will know

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    My understanding is it’s ALL homes in Scotland from Feb 22?

    “… Every home in Scotland must have interlinked fire alarms by February 2022. Being interlinked means if one alarm goes off, they all go off. You may not always hear the alarm closest to the fire, especially if you're somewhere else in the house. An interlinked system will alert you immediately.”

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    Thing is a typical tenant will not reset correctly then they just pull them off the ceiling or turn the circuit off. Had this wil every house with them

     
  • George Dawes

    Fair enough . Gas is turning out to be a total hassle , maybe going all electric isn’t such a bad idea after all ?

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    Some of my properties are all electric even though there is gas available , electric is just less hassle.

     
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    Responsible LL, used to be good before regulators got at it, when it was off the lighting circuit they couldn’t switch them off without loosing their lights. They are now required to be on their own independent circuit / trip switch, so they know now all they need to do is off one switch and smoke away

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    Exactly my point young Michael

     
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    A technician was telling me that in walsall some rented propeerties are fitted with heat exchangers in the loft, so extraxct the heat from the exhaled air. Unfortunately people were crawling into the loft and disconnecting the power to them, i believe that its because they think that the fans use too much power !

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    Oh yes you would be surprised what tenants disconnect to save on utility bills, kitchen and bathroom extractor fans, I've even had a lady tape up an extractor fan in a bathroom and then complain about damp and mushrooms growing there on the damp

     
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    I don’t know about those although I helped put in a couple of heat pumps for swimming pools, there was a couple of fans on them alright, supposed to produce a lot more energy than the electric they use, very heavy units a couple of cwt each.

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    heat pumps work well unless ambient temp is low

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    co2 etectors next? govt thinks co2 is toxic

  • PossessionFriendUK PossessionFriend

    So Scotland only concerned with Tenants Fire safety, Not Home owners, this will push up rents even further.

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    It's all homes, not just rented properties.

     
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