Design and Protection – Where should you be installing smoke alarms?

When speaking to interior designers they often say lighting is one of the most important elements when decorating your home, but instead of just wondering about the placement of lighting the CAVIUS team want to remind everyone that you should also take fire safety into consideration. This blog is to help ensure that you have left a space to protect your home.

When we spend thousands of pounds on creating a home that is great to look at and even better to live in, we want to ensure we take our time and get every design element just right. We spend a lot of time on choosing colours and furniture and less time thinking about the life saving precautions we could put in place.

Most of us are aware that we need smoke and heat alarms, or even flood alarms. However, the frequently asked questions often include – What is the difference between a smoke and heat alarm? Where should they be installed? Do we need them in more than one room? Can we just have them in the kitchen? The list goes on.

Step 1:

Let us start with the basics, the general rule is quite easy. You should install heat alarms in your kitchen and garage. If you have washing machines and dishwashers in your kitchen or utility, you should consider flood alarms. For everywhere else, you want smoke alarms or a combination of smoke and heat alarms.

Step 2:

Once you have established what goes where you might want to consider the amount of alarms you install, once again, the general rule is quite easy – The more you install, the higher level of protection.

For maximum protection an alarm should be fitted in every room (except bathrooms). We recommend that you choose the type most suited to the risk in each room. For minimum protection the number to be fitted will depend on the type of home you live in, for example, if your home is on one floor, one smoke alarm, may be enough to provide you with early warning of a fire. However, if your home has more than one floor, at least one alarm should be fitted on each level.

When we said, ‘Do not fit an alarm in the bathroom’, the reason behind this is that steam may trigger the alarm.

Step 3:

Your level of protection depends on your circumstances, once you have decided on the type and amount of alarms, then you can think about the installation.

Smoke alarms are usually screwed onto the ceilings and should be fitted as close to the centre of the room as possible, but at least 30 centimetres away from any wall or light fitting. You should always make sure that your alarm is fitted in a place where it can be heard throughout your home – particularly when you are asleep.

Heat alarms will usually be placed closer to electrical appliances in your kitchen and flood alarms should be placed closer to the floor behind washing machines etc.

Step 4:

The time to purchase your alarms has come. You have decided what you need, how many you need and where they need to be installed and now, you want to ensure that they are not large and unsightly. Additionally, you might want them to include smart technology or require minimal maintenance, luckily, you can have style, protection and minimal maintenance with CAVIUS.

The CAVIUS Wireless Alarm Family is the latest addition to the CAVIUS range. Using innovative Radio Frequency technology, our Wireless Family alarms connect with each another offering extra protection for your home and family.

The CAVIUS Wireless Photoelectric Smoke Alarm comes fitted with a 5-year long-life battery and the CAVIUS Thermal Heat Alarm has a 10-year battery. The process for syncing up your Wireless Family alarms is simple; set all your Wireless Family alarms into ‘LEARN/LINK’ mode, press the test button on one alarm which creates a ‘Master’ – the ‘Master’ sends out a unique code to all your other alarms. Place the alarms back into ‘NORMAL’ mode and you are ready to install.

For more information on our safety products, click here.

You can purchase the CAVIUS products, here.

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To speak to our team, call: 0330 999 0019