Different brands of smoke alarms on same circuit

[Gavin John Hyde]

What is the situation regards different brands of smoke alarms on the same circuit.
Got a house with AICO downstairs and Kidde upstairs all sharing the same interconnect wire on the one circuit.
Is this against manufacturers instructions and whilst they may all sound if activated is it by fluke or do they work to a common standard?
Landlord has asked me to sort the remedial items on a recent EICR but this was flagged and I am not 100% sure if they need taking out or not?

 

[littlespark]

I can’t see the different manufacturers using the same signal down the interconnect wire. I don’t think it’s a standard 230v

did it work both ways? Aico to kidde, then Kidde to aico?

could just be a fluke, but if anything goes wrong with a detector, they’ll blame the other one being connected.

 

[Gavin John Hyde]

It worked Kidde to Aico but not the other way when i went to take a look today.
All rather confusing. to make matters worse the aico ones are all diffirent types there is a heat in the bedroom and a smoke in a kitchen... complete mishmash and thats before we get to the consumer unit...
more holes in it than a swiss cheese.

 

[Risteard]

What is the situation regards different brands of smoke alarms on the same circuit.
Got a house with AICO downstairs and Kidde upstairs all sharing the same interconnect wire on the one circuit.
Is this against manufacturers instructions and whilst they may all sound if activated is it by fluke or do they work to a common standard?
Landlord has asked me to sort the remedial items on a recent EICR but this was flagged and I am not 100% sure if they need taking out or not?

Completely unacceptable in my view. I always flag this as an issue.

Very often the interconnect will not operate correctly or could damage the detectors. Often the circuit will be isolated because it has never operated correctly. Sometimes it goes into a permanent cacophony of noise.

For something as important as smoke detection mixing brands is an absolute no no in my view. Nobody will stand over the arrangement.

 

[Dave OCD]

I've recently [today] had a strange fault with 4 smoke detectors in a large-ish house. They had a bodger 'builder' replace [overboard] a hallway ceiling where one of the Aico alarms was fitted. The owner of the house rang me last week saying none of the alarms would operate the others when the test button was pushed . I went to have a look and checked the one that bodger had removed and refitted , it had been reconnected in the right order although rough - but then I removed the alarm including the base to find he'd put a screw right through the 3 core shorting the permanent live and interlink together !
So I'm assuming this has knackered the electronics in the detectors by sending 230v down the 9v interlink connection ? It's a real shame as the detectors were only renewed in 2019!

 

[richy3333]

A harsh lesson for the customer to learn - don’t let the builder do the wiring!

 

[telectrix]

and never let a builder near a screwdriver, if he can't hammer a screw in, he's not fit to call himself a builder.

 

[Dave OCD]

and never let a builder near a screwdriver, if he can't hammer a screw in, he's not fit to call himself a builder.

Seems to be the impact driver gets used constantly these days Tel, bloody racket really gets on your nerves in no time at all.

 

[telectrix]

Seems to be the impact driver gets used constantly these days Tel, bloody racket really gets on your nerves in no time at all.

even worse is them paslode spawns of the devil. evry time one fires I think i'm back in Toxteth getting shot at.