Best Interlinked Smoke And Heat Alarms UK

The interconnectivity of interlinked smoke alarms may mean that they are able to alert you to the danger more quickly than traditional standalone systems.

For example, imagine there was a fire on the ground floor of a three-storey house. With a traditional standalone alarm system, the alarm on the ground floor would be triggered first, but you may not here this from the third floor. As the fire increases in size, an alarm on the second story may be triggered, and depending on the size of the house you still might be unaware of the danger. This is particularly true if you often wear headphones or have the TV on a high volume.

On the other hand, radio linked smoke alarms will all trigger in sync. This will mean that as soon as a fire is detected on the ground floor, the alarms on the third floor can immediately make you aware of the danger. This ability to alert the whole house of potential danger is the main reason that interlinked smoke alarms are so useful.

The general rule is that you should have a smoke alarm in every living room (or the room you most), a smoke alarm in every hallway and landing, and one heat alarm in the kitchen. All smoke alarms should be mounted to the celling and interlinked.

These rules are becoming more commonplace across many different countries, so it’s a great idea to get ahead of the curve if your local council or government is not already specifying interlinked smoke and heat alarm as a necessary fire safety precaution. 

Depending on your general capability with electrical systems and your knowledge of your home’s electrical circuit, you may be able to install a hard wired detector independently. 

Even though you may have the technical knowledge to complete the install, it’s generally recommended that you get a qualified electrician to take care of it when dealing with safety-related electrical systems like smoke and heat alarms. Minor errors or oversights could completely compromise the system, so it’s best to let a professional double check it to ensure that your family is as safe as possible. 

There are two main types of interconnected smoke alarms – sealed battery alarms and mains wired alarms. As the names would suggest the main difference is that the mains powered interlinked smoke alarms rely on a connection to mains power to function, whereas sealed battery alarms are capable of operating independently. You’ll need to regularly replace the batteries for smoke alarms that don’t use main power. Both of these alarm variants use radio frequencies to create their interconnected networks, meaning that there’s no need for a WiFi connection.