On the 1st February, a new law from the Scottish Government requiring every home in Scotland to have interlinked smoke alarms came into force. The legislation was introduced in 2019 following the tragic Grenfell disaster but was delayed until 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
All residential homes now need to have interlinked smoke and heat detectors installed in order to comply with health and safety laws. This means that all households must have:
• one smoke alarm installed in the room most frequently used for general daytime living purposes,
• one smoke alarm in every circulation space on each storey, such as hallways and landings,
• one heat alarm installed in every kitchen.
All alarms should be ceiling mounted and interlinked (either hard wired or wireless). Where there is a carbon-fuelled appliance (such as boilers, wood burners, fires – including open fires – and heaters) or a flue, a carbon monoxide detector is also required, although this does not need to be linked to the fire alarms.
Interlinked alarms means that if one alarm goes off, they all go off, so you will always hear an alarm wherever you are in your home, giving you time to vacate the property should a fire start during the night.
You can either purchase these alarms and install them yourself or you can engage the services of a professional company to install them for you – as long as they are installed correctly. More than 40 people were killed in house fires in Scotland in 2020/2021, and, on average, 30% of blazes started in the living room, therefore the new laws could help save your life.