Smoke alarms - cheese on toast problem!!!
Discussion
Ah, I had this problem. What you need is a smoke alarm designed for kitchen area use - about £10. It has a button that you press when your culinary masterpieces set it off. The button silences it for about 8 mins with just the odd bleep. Strange how the oven starts it off even when there is no smoke. Must be an ionisation thing.
HTH
Dave
406
HTH
Dave
406
Dont put it in the Kitchen, put them in adjoining rooms, and more importantly, put one in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs.
In the event a fire does take for example in the front room, and the front room alarm doesnt go off, the hallway one may catch it and give you an early warning.
Dont forget the annual dust and battery change, batteries are cheap, lives are not.
And have a good quality fire extinguisher handy in the home, not wanting to go on too much, but dont (as some do) put is where you have to reach over the cooker to get to it, just inside the kitchen is a good place.
In the event a fire does take for example in the front room, and the front room alarm doesnt go off, the hallway one may catch it and give you an early warning.
Dont forget the annual dust and battery change, batteries are cheap, lives are not.
And have a good quality fire extinguisher handy in the home, not wanting to go on too much, but dont (as some do) put is where you have to reach over the cooker to get to it, just inside the kitchen is a good place.
Take the battery out and disconnect it at the fuse box.
Honestly these things are a nuisance.
I'm more likely to die breaking my neck falling down stairs to turn the thing off after a false alarm than I ever am in a real fire.
I'm also more likely to die in a fire caused by me leaving the stove to deal with another false alarm than I am in any real fire that the thing would have detected.
In fact we're all probably better off with these things silenced.
Honestly these things are a nuisance.
I'm more likely to die breaking my neck falling down stairs to turn the thing off after a false alarm than I ever am in a real fire.
I'm also more likely to die in a fire caused by me leaving the stove to deal with another false alarm than I am in any real fire that the thing would have detected.
In fact we're all probably better off with these things silenced.
SMOKE ALARMS: Introduction
You're twice as likely to die in a fire at home if you haven't got a smoke alarm.
A smoke alarm is the easiest way to alert you to the danger of fire, giving you precious time to escape. It's cheap, easy to get hold of and easy to fit. There's no excuse for not having one.
But many people who have smoke alarms are in danger too. The alarm could be in the wrong place, there may not be enough smoke alarms for the size of their home, they may not have checked their alarm recently or the batteries could be missing.
This section of the site shows what to look for in smoke alarms, how to fit them so they work most effectively, and how to maintain them.
www.firekills.gov.uk/smoke_alarms/01.htm
You're twice as likely to die in a fire at home if you haven't got a smoke alarm.
A smoke alarm is the easiest way to alert you to the danger of fire, giving you precious time to escape. It's cheap, easy to get hold of and easy to fit. There's no excuse for not having one.
But many people who have smoke alarms are in danger too. The alarm could be in the wrong place, there may not be enough smoke alarms for the size of their home, they may not have checked their alarm recently or the batteries could be missing.
This section of the site shows what to look for in smoke alarms, how to fit them so they work most effectively, and how to maintain them.
www.firekills.gov.uk/smoke_alarms/01.htm
in my old house, we had a smole alarm @ the top of the stairs on the landing. Every time we had a shower, then opened the bathroom door, the Alaem would be triggered. this was steam, not smoke.
Mrs Monkey eventually beat the living cr@p out of it after running a bath & the thing kept going off.
Also those little "thunder bugs" you get in the summer, you know, the ones which can get behind the glass on picture frames etc. (And no, they were not Monkey fleas), well, they used tio set it off too.
Mrs Monkey eventually beat the living cr@p out of it after running a bath & the thing kept going off.
Also those little "thunder bugs" you get in the summer, you know, the ones which can get behind the glass on picture frames etc. (And no, they were not Monkey fleas), well, they used tio set it off too.
I'm sure smoke alarms use Alpha or Beta Particles as part of the detection system. Can't remember which one though. When I was living in Newcastle on my ground floor flat I had exactly the same problem. Each time the smoke decttor would go off when making toast. Much to the annoyance of the woman who lived above me. Now usually I would have shut the door, but apparently putting your music on a 2am during the week and light fixture shaking level is ok so it never really bothered me to let the detector run a bit, until one day I heard her loundly askign what I was doing down there, but in a much more colourful way. So I ran around the flat shouting out "Help, help I'm on fire!! I'm burning up!!" Confused her into shutting up.
driftwood said:
SMOKE ALARMS: Introduction
You're twice as likely to die in a fire at home if you haven't got a smoke alarm.
A smoke alarm is the easiest way to alert you to the danger of fire, giving you precious time to escape. It's cheap, easy to get hold of and easy to fit. There's no excuse for not having one.
But many people who have smoke alarms are in danger too. The alarm could be in the wrong place, there may not be enough smoke alarms for the size of their home, they may not have checked their alarm recently or the batteries could be missing.
This section of the site shows what to look for in smoke alarms, how to fit them so they work most effectively, and how to maintain them.
www.firekills.gov.uk/smoke_alarms/01.htm
Out of interest what causes domestic fires?
Kids playing with matches?
Chip pans?
Duff electrics?
Malfunctioning smoke alarms?
I really did mean it in my last post when I said I thought I was more likely to get hurt by a false alarm than by a real fire.
It's a bit like stairgates for babies. Death traps. A friend of ours has one at the top of a long flight of stairs. The bottom bar of the gate makes a perfect trip wire. She's more likely to hurt the baby by falling downstairs while carrying it after tripping over the thing than the baby is likely to actually fall down stairs on its own!
You may have guessed that we don't have a stairgate either...
vixpy1 said:
Smoke alarm saved my house, when i smoked indoors, I used to use a little salad bowl as my ashtry.. (Yes, I know it was a bad idea to have a wooden ashtray now!)
It caught fire, the smoke alarm called me from dowstairs long before anything else caught..
Wooden ashtrays? I don't suppose you want to buy some chocolate teapots too? I've got a good supply
Apart from the Alarm in the hallway - thats the kitchen type one, I have one in the lounge, 1 at the top of the stairs and one in every bedroom does anyone know that when the baterry fails is it always at 4 in the morning? I have changed 3 batteries this quarter and all in the middle of the night 
406 said:
Apart from the Alarm in the hallway - thats the kitchen type one, I have one in the lounge, 1 at the top of the stairs and one in every bedroom does anyone know that when the baterry fails is it always at 4 in the morning? I have changed 3 batteries this quarter and all in the middle of the night
Change the batteries once a year so you won't have to get up in the middle of the night! Obviously you had the replacements but hadn't fitted them.
mk6fiesta said:
We have got a hard-wired system in our house to comply with building regs.
If one goes off, they all go orf! (and there is one in every room!) Bloody annoying but better than burning to death in a fire I should think!
Same at mine. Bloody useful they are too. At my last house I left a chip pan on the heat while I eat my tea. When I went back into the kitchen, it was full of white smoke and the pan was doing a good impression of Mount St Helens volcano spewing smoke everywhere. If I'd had a detector it would have stopped this happening. I was really lucky that it didn't catch fire. First job in the new house was Mains Powered battery backup linked smoke alarms with Hush buttons.
They make a hell of a racket when they go off but i'd rather not die in a house fire. Most people die from smoke inhalation and if asleep often don't even wake up. Scary thought. Did a fire Marshall course for work and it really makes sense to have them.
simpo two said:
You bought a cheese alarm by mistake.
No ..really..
www.irvington.org/missrios/proj1-paaP/products.htm
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